


red. and a little more red.

by brawlite



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Scott McCall, Angst, Clothes Sharing, Frappuccinos, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Pack Fic, Pining, Slow Build, a fixation with blood, also a smattering of unhealthy coping techniques, apologies to siken, bits and pieces of canon and fanon, descriptions of food, not necessarily a redemption fic, nothing is canon, overused metaphors, peter has a midlife crisis, peter's midlife crisis as a plot device, snippets of events, some gore, strangely healthy coping techniques, the best way to deal with problems is to ignore them until they go away, the steady progression of time, vague references to ptsd, what exactly are timelines? who knows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 19:24:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12196116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brawlite/pseuds/brawlite
Summary: Peter Hale returns to Beacon Hills after some time away. He finds the inescapable bonds of pack, the remnants of family, and a loft that is bigger and better than Derek's. He even finds what is beginning to feel a lot like a midlife crisis. That, he blames on Stiles. The slow and inevitable progression of time might have something to do with it, too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> with apologies to siken, for borrowing a line from _detail of the fire_ for the title of this.

Time passes.

It is a universal constant that even he cannot escape. He feels the pull of the moon around the earth like the ticking away of seconds on a clock: it passes -- and passes and passes.

Days, months, years. All of them, slipping through his fingertips.

Peter can run from death, can outwit the fates -- but he cannot escape the slow and steady progression of time.

\--

It’s not the dreams of fire that haunt him now.

It’s the waking nightmares of constant darkness, of void and silence. 

The feeling of smoke trapped in his lungs, of flames licking his skin were easy to shake in comparison to the cold loneliness of nothingness. 

He’s not sure why his mind is only now retreating to the neat space he carved himself during the years of his coma, during his time in the blackness of death, but it is.

Maybe the emptiness means something.

Maybe it doesn’t.

\--

Maybe it means he is finally having that midlife crisis everyone talks about.

\--

Derek and Cora travel, and so does Peter. He just doesn’t travel _with_ them. 

They are family, yes, but it’s not the same since the fire.

Nothing is the same since the fire.

Peter goes to New York and spends months and money on the finer things in life simply because it looks glamorous. It feels it, too. He hikes the Appalachian trail, spending weeks underneath the stars and a few more scaring unsuspecting hikers. He spends Halloween in New Orleans because he’s never been before. It’s decadent and loud amd crowded, and it’s even better that the holiday falls directly on the full moon. He spends a snowy year up in a cabin in Montana, hunting elk and deer, speaking a word to no other living being. It’s beautiful -- but even to Peter, who lived six years in nothingness, it’s lonely.

All of it is lonely, honestly.

He thinks that maybe he’s getting soft, that spending too long on the fringes of a half-formed pack was no good for him. That it wore off all his sharp edges, like the ocean slowly wearing away a stone.

The ties of pack, of family, call to him. They pull him, like invisible lifelines attached straight to his heart, unstoppable and unrelenting, until he finally gives in.

\--

Beacon Hills is teeming with new real estate. 

Peter’s favorites are the modern lofts cut out of abandoned warehouses, the ones that cater to older millennials and hip Gen-Xers. Reclaimed wood, concrete countertops, exposed ceilings. It’s very California, very New York City, too. He buys one because he has the money. And, because he can’t let his nephew upstage him in terms of real estate, he buys a bigger loft than Derek’s. Nicer. It’s far too large for just one person, but that’s who Peter is now. He doesn’t have a wife or children -- it’s just him, rattling around in his open-concept living space with stainless-steel appliances, edison bulbs, and glass-front cabinets. Just him, alone.

\--

He buys a plant, because that’s what everyone does when they move into a new and empty place. If there’s nothing alive in it -- and Peter doesn’t really count anymore, not after his brush with death -- you’re supposed to stick something green in it and call it a day. 

Right?

\--

Derek and Cora move back to Beacon Hills before him. 

Peter doesn’t realize this until they show up at his door with something still-steaming that smells homemade and unceremoniously invite themselves into his space.

They sit around on the ground -- he doesn’t have a table yet -- and eat something that tastes remarkably similar to his sister’s balsamic roast beef stew. Peter doesn’t let himself think about where they might have found the recipe, just lets himself enjoy it instead. He even goes so far as to tell Derek it tastes only half-burnt, which is as much praise as he’s going to get. Derek smells pleased, even though he growls and furrows his brow. With that expression, he looks so much like his mother.

There’s friction between the three of them, like the wrong sides of velcro chafing and scratching, but they are still family and it feels good to be near them. Their voices ease a bit of the tension in his shoulders and the warmth of the food eases at the knot in his chest. 

“We felt you come back,” Derek says, when Peter asks how he knew he was back in town. He knows the pull of family, but somehow it still surprises him that they could feel him, that it wasn’t just one-directional.

“We wanted to give you a few days to settle,” Cora says. She looks around, eyebrow raised, and scoffs. “Not that you did. Looks like you need some help. We’ll be back tomorrow with some actual stuff.”

Peter wants to say something about Derek’s empty loft from years ago, wants to turn it back around on them, but instead he lets it lie. There will always be another opportunity for well-placed words and cutting remarks.

Right now, he lets himself have this.

\--

Peter dreams that night of flames, of burning alive. It’s cold, so cold, and it leaves him in nothingness. 

Black, in all directions. 

Soundless, heatless, empty.

He wakes up cold -- and also alone.

\--

He buys furniture. Derek absconds for whatever he’s calling a job these days and Cora goes with him to Ikea. Everything Peter chooses is modern and pretentious-looking, which suits the aesthetic of his loft and his life perfectly. 

“Are you having a midlife crisis?” Cora asks, running her fingers over floating shelves he placed in his cart. “I’m not sure what they look like, but I think this is one.”

“No,” Peter says, ticking off the number of a drop-leaf table with metal legs. He likes the knots in the wood, the variations in the grain. 

When they roll the cart through the children’s section, he asks her if she wants a mobile of animals in party-hats. When she gives him a _look_ and continues on, he just says, “Sorry, couldn’t tell how old you are. I’m just so _ancient_ now; I could’ve sworn you were a toddler.”

When they get home, he kicks her out. But not before making her help him put together two bookshelves and the kitchen table.

\--

Pack dinners are at Derek’s loft. 

He doesn’t particularly _want_ to go -- but appearances must.

The space is similar to Peter’s, but it’s cozier. It smells like home -- instead of _new_ and _empty_ and _clean_. It’s unsettlingly welcoming, honestly. Peter hasn’t felt the pull of a location in a while, the intrinsic draw of a space that his instincts call _home_ but not his mind. It makes his stomach twist disquietingly, makes the corner of his lips pull up in a sneer. This place isn’t _his_ \-- and yet, it is.

A lot of the pack, of the people Peter remembers seeing, have left Beacon Hills. Some have gone for good and some have left and returned. Scott and Allison have stayed -- and been busy, from the looks of the brown-eyed pup sitting on Allison’s knee. Lydia smells like _elsewhere_ , at least as much as Peter can gather, as she has intelligently put at least one piece of furniture in between them since he walked in. Old habits, he thinks approvingly. Regardless, Peter gets the impression that even if she lives or works or studies elsewhere, the loft still smells like her enough that he knows she’s back often. Jackson is hovering on the fringes, as Peter always remembers him. Erika and Boyd -- two of Derek’s packmates that Peter doesn’t truly know -- are wedged into a loveseat, largely ignoring him -- and also everyone else as well. Isaac stands taller than Peter remembers, broader, and helps Derek in the kitchen. 

It’s comfortable, Peter thinks. The friction of days past has gone and left an amicable calmness in its wake. 

For a moment, Peter thinks this might be it -- this might be all that’s left of Derek’s conglomerate pack. It’s _fine_ , he thinks -- but it’s _missing something_.

The door opens with a loud flurry of activity. Cora tumbles through the door first, arms laden with food, followed by a scent Peter remembers vividly, but a face that has changed considerably.

“Sorry we’re late, there was a _huge_ line at Bizarra. Everyone and their mother wanted Tex-Mex, apparently. They gave us free guac, though, which is cool but doesn’t _really_ make up for the fact that we had to wait approximately three hundred years -- oh my god,” Stiles’ attention finally lands on Peter. “Hold up. Is that _Peter_?” Peter smiles and raises his beer in a salute. 

_Ah_ , Peter thinks. _That’s what was missing_.

\--

“Are you still the worst?” Stiles asks, when Peter finds himself on the balcony of Derek’s loft, trying to escape the thrum of people who are not quite yet _Pack_ , but not strangers enough to have him fleeing into the night in search of a place he’d rather be. 

The stars are bright. The warm summer air smells like heat and smoke and growth.

“That depends,” Peter says when Stiles leans up against the railing next to him, “are you still annoying and terrible?”

\--

It’s unfair, really, calling Stiles terrible.

He’s anything but, Peter thinks, as he watches the kid disenchant a talisman in the middle of the woods in the rain. Peter is stuck holding an umbrella over Stiles’ head. He watches the light of the magic, a cool and pleasant green, ebb and flow and twist through Stiles’ fingers. His hands are large, calloused and sturdy, and Peter thinks that he’s done a lot of growing while Peter was gone.

“You smell like wet dog,” Stiles says, tugging a stray twist of light back into place when it threatens to escape. 

Peter tilts the umbrella just so, making it so that all of the rapidly falling water sloshes straight down the back of Stiles’ neck. “Oops.”

It’s a pleasant surprise when Stiles laughs, the sound muffled by the rain, but still bright and beautiful in the stark darkness of the woods. “Oh my god,” he says. “I forgot just how awful you are.” But Stiles is still laughing, even though his words are biting and his back is soaking wet.

When he stands, brushing invisible magic off his hands like dirt, Peter admires the way his shirt damply clings to his skin, accentuating muscles Peter doesn’t remember him having.

\--

When Peter dreams that night, he dreams of chasing green light through the woods. 

It’s a pleasant change from the void, but eventually his luck runs out. 

He runs and runs, and the trees thin out more and more with each passing step. He ends up on the edge of nothingness again, green light lost in the vast void of the the place that was once full of trees. Again, he is left with nothing. With the silence. And with himself. 

\--

“Well, there’s something I missed seeing,” Stiles says, balancing his mountain ash bat over his shoulders while Peter licks blood from his claws. It’s mostly for show. He has a perfectly ruined shirt he could be using to clean himself off, instead. 

Stiles watches him, eyes tracking over his every movement. Observant, as always. “Really brings me back to high school. All the blood and the gore and you being a crazy serial killer.”

“I’m really not a fan of getting my hands dirty. But sometimes, needs must,” Peter shrugs.

It’s not anyone’s fault that a group of rabid omegas started edging into their territory. It’s not anyone’s fault that they started killing indiscriminately. Messily. Peter doesn’t like cleaning up other’s messes, but this, at least, was just bad luck. There was no saving them -- they had to be put down, out of their misery. 

Scott and Derek put Peter on the task. Maybe as a test, maybe just because they trusted Peter to _get it done_. Regardless, Stiles had been his entourage -- watching from a distance, critiquing every swipe of his claws. 

It’s been a long time since Peter’s killed, Stiles is more right than he knows. He’ll make jokes about Peter being the psychopathic killer he was back in the day, but the last time Peter truly let his instincts overcome him was when he’d been driven mad by grief, by the power of being the alpha. Now, even in the height of battle, he still has his wits about him. Still has his control.

He’d like to keep it. Which means that he tends to avoid this sort of thing, unless absolutely necessary. 

The blood is still red on his hands -- so red. And a little more red. 

It clouds his vision, his memories, his dreams.

“At least you look good doing it,” Stiles says, no hint of anything in his tone other than _simple fact_. “Scott always looks absolutely absurd when he shifts. Like a terrible low-budget Syfy thriller.”

“Careful, Stiles,” Peter says, letting himself smile with teeth that are still too long, too pointed to be entirely friendly. “I’ll get the impression you actually like having me around.”

“You’re right, you look absolutely ridiculous and also I hate you. You missed a spot,” Stiles says, dragging his thumb over his lower lip, a little bit to the left. The flesh pulls with the movement, showing Peter a flash of Stiles’ pearly whites and dark pink.

All Peter sees for hours, creeping in on the edges of his vision, is red.

\--

“Why do you have bookshelves if you have no books?” Cora asks, flopping down on Peter’s couch, feet on the armrest. Her shoes are still on.

“Take your shoes off or you’ll lose your feet,” Peter warns. “I digitized most of my books. They’re on the cloud.” If there’s another fire, they’ll be accessible from everywhere -- with the right passwords, anyway. “There are still some, but they’re in a box somewhere.” He hasn’t finished unpacking. The thought of actually truly _settling_ somewhere is a strange one. The only place he’s spent a considerable amount of time since the fire was the hospital. 

He’s not sure he’ll ever finish unpacking.

Truthfully, he’d bought the bookshelves because he felt like he should.

Peter moves the plant onto the shelves. _There_ , that’s better. 

Cora scoffs and Peter throws a remote at her head and tells her to keep her bad opinions to herself. 

Maybe he’s just going for the minimalistic approach.

\--

“Wow, Cora was right,” Stiles says as he pushes past Peter not even a second after Peter’s opened the door for him. He’d known it was Stiles, knew the familiar jackrabbiting of his heart, knew the woodsy citrus scent creeping underneath his door. He’d expected this -- Stiles always showed up uninvited before, mostly to Derek’s loft or to crime scenes -- but even this isn’t out of the ordinary.

What _is_ unexpected was Stiles pushing past him into his loft, arms laden with _stuff_ , bags dangling off his shoulders.

“This place is depressing,” Stiles says.

“They were all out of dungeon lairs,” Peter says. “So I had to make do.”

Stiles snorts and pulls a white paper-mache elk head out of a shopping bag. It has gold antlers. It’s _truly atrocious_. 

“Absolutely not,” Peter says.

“No, see, I got you the full set,” Stiles says, as if that makes it any better. 

By the time Stiles is done with his little impromptu decorating session, Peter’s loft looks like it rolled straight out of a hipster-chic magazine. On the flat and lonely wall where Peter used to enjoy staring until his eyes swam, Stiles has hung an paper-mache elk, deer, and moose head. They are all white with gold horns. Around the deer’s neck he has hung something that looks like a lei, but smells overwhelmingly medicinal and herbal -- Peter suspects he didn’t buy that one in the home decor section of Target like the rest of the junk. It probably keeps something away or ensures something else, given Stiles proclivity toward magic, but Peter refuses to bolster the kid’s ego by _asking_. He’s already doing enough damage by not kicking Stiles out. 

There are also various pictures that Stiles has hung with bits of gold decorative tape in a haphazard, but visually pleasing array. 

“This is a lot of gold for someone who isn’t a dragon,” Peter says, admiring his new Stiles-given aesthetic. There’s shiny bits of gold _everywhere._ It looks nice, actually, but he’s not about to say that either.

“Those don’t exist. Besides, you’d hoard something else, you creep -- like trophies from your kills.” Stiles tears a piece of tape off with his teeth and secures one last picture -- something that looks like an abstract, blood red heart. Peter likes that one the best. He likes the way Stiles’ fingers smooth over the center of it as he pushes away from the wall. 

Peter just shrugs. Takes a threatening step toward Stiles, just because he can. “Blood doesn’t stay that brilliant, rich shade for too long. It’s not worth keeping on display to admire later, as tempting as that might be.” 

To his credit, Stiles doesn’t even flinch. 

“Help me hang these string lights,” Stiles says instead. “I want this place looking as hipster as possible, ASAP. And, if you even think of dropping me, I’ll pull your teeth out, one by one. I’ll even keep them as trophies.”

Peter tries not to smile at the threat. A tingling feeling worms through his chest before settling into a pleasant space beneath his ribs. 

He hoists Stiles up onto his shoulders so the younger man can press the lights into the corners of Peter’s overly-tall ceiling. He doesn’t offer to find a chair, but Stiles doesn’t either, so Peter writes it off as part of this strange reality he’s suddenly found himself in, instead.

The warm tingling feeling continues buzzing in his chest all afternoon, absolutely refusing to leave.

\--

“Did Cora and Isaac decorate the place?” Derek asks when he next comes over, carefully displacing a few throw pillow so that he can sit on the couch. 

“Stiles did.”

Derek raises his eyebrow, giving Peter a look that reminds him very much of Talia. Peter again neglects to mention it, because that wound is still too fresh for either of them to poke at. Maybe it always will be.

“I am aware that this is all an elaborate joke, yes.” Peter continues, surveying his loft from his comfortable chair. It does look like the entire space was taken straight out of the pages of a _Restoration Hardware_ or _West Elm_ catalog; it still has the stark white _cleanness_ that Peter has gotten so used to, but all of Stiles’ little decorating touches have warmed the place up a bit, made it look and feel more homey. The motif of wolves and gold that Stiles chose is a little cliche, but Peter doesn’t truly mind. It seems to make the place feel more lived-in, even if it’s a joke at Peter’s expense.

“He hung a minimalistic print of _Three Wolf Moon_ over your television and you’re telling me you don’t care?”

“Not really, no.”

There’s also a truly hideous gold wolf sitting next to his plant on the bookshelf, too. But Peter can’t bring himself to hate that, either. 

The place also now smells overwhelmingly like Stiles, given that the boy had run his fingers over just about everything in the loft. His scent lingers in the corners, in every breath Peter takes.

“It’s the thought that counts,” Peter tells Derek. 

Derek levels him a look. “And if the thought is to make you look like an idiot?” “Then I think I appreciate it even more.”

\--

“I thought you didn’t like getting your hands dirty,” Stiles asks, choosing a perfect moment where Peter is elbow-deep in a corpse of some strange creature, trying to rip out a heart that feels like it’s made of stone. It’s a very bloody, very messy process.

“Quiet in the peanut gallery, please.”

“I mean, I’m just saying,” Stiles throws his hands in the air. “You used to be the guy on the sidelines, you know? You did anything just to keep yourself from getting into the middle of things. Now, you’re like --” Stiles gestures wildly, presumably at Peter. He can only really see Stiles out of his peripheral, so it’s unclear. “All up in. -- I don’t even know what to do with this.”

“Quiet,” Peter says, because he’s trying to concentrate. He wants to crush the heart between his fingers, wants to feel it crumble into pieces in his hand. He wants to watch the blood drip down his fingers and then he wants to watch it dry under his nails. That would be the easiest solution -- but they need to save it, to burn it to prevent reanimation. Or something like that -- Peter wasn’t really listening. 

He hears Stiles open his mouth, so he quickly continues, “if you’d like to do this, be my guest. Otherwise, _be quiet_ , Stiles -- before I shut you up myself.”

Stiles makes a noise in his throat, but it’s not words, so Peter counts it as a win.

\--

“Living as an eccentric bachelor really is your calling, isn’t it?”

Lydia, beautiful and intelligent vixen that she is, still gives him a wide berth of space. She’s not scared of him, Peter knows this. She’s simply too smart to allow him close. 

“At least you have style,” she says as she pulls out a can of sparkling water from Derek’s fridge. On pack nights, they can’t avoid each other. It means that Lydia pretends she’s not avoiding him, actively seeking Peter out as he makes guacamole in Derek’s kitchen. “I can’t say the same for most of the other eccentric bachelors I know.”

Lydia looks past Peter into the open-concept space and he turns to follow her gaze. She’s looking at Stiles, who is wearing nothing Peter would call hideous, but certainly wouldn’t deem worthy of a lookbook. He fills out his half-zipped hoodie -- just as he fills out the tee shirt he wears underneath. At some point, he’s traded torn jeans for actual trousers -- a dark brown, rich and colorful, just like his eyes.

“Mm.” Lydia makes a curious little noise in her throat, and when Peter turns to look back at her, she’s looking at him. 

“What?”

“Nothing.” It’s never nothing, not with Lydia Martin. “Anyone’s better than Scott, though,” she finishes, as if she wasn’t being cryptic at all.

“Who’s better than me?” Scott says as he stumbles into the kitchen, pulling his faded shirt carefully over his head, meandering toward, but not entirely directly at, the kitchen sink. “Got baby food all over me, sorry, sorry.”

Lydia smiles as she gracefully steps out of the way. “No one, McCall. No one.” She takes a chip and pilfers some of Peter’s guacamole, even though it isn’t quite done. “Don’t use dish soap. Use vinegar instead,” she says to Scott.

She dips another chip into the guac and frowns, “this could use more lime.”

\--

Peter ends up on Derek’s balcony again as the night starts drawing in. He feels like it would be a poignant time and place to have a cigarette, but he sees little point in smoking just for the repetitive motion. Buying cigarettes would be a waste of the money he earned by surviving his entire family, dying, and then coming back to life again.

The sky is remarkably clear, enough so that he could waste his evening trying to count the stars, if he so chose. 

“All the noise and commotion too much for your delicate werewolf senses?” A voice asks from behind him. Peter hears the gentle _shick_ of the sliding door as it closes, trapping him outside in the warm air with Stiles. 

Peter could choose from an array of biting remarks. There are so many at his fingertips. Instead, he finds himself saying something close to the truth: “I didn’t think this is what I’d be coming back to.” 

Stiles barks out a laugh. “Are you getting tired of Tex-Mex? Because let me tell you, pack nights have been Tex-Mex for the last twelve weeks straight. So if you’re planning on sticking around, you may as well resign yourself to it.”

“Blasphemy -- I could never get tired of Tex-Mex,” Peter says, before continuing. “Apart from the occasional upset, everything is far more sane than it was when I left.” And really, sticking his hand into a corpse every now and then is nothing compared to what Peter thought he’d be returning to. There’s even a _child_. What’s Peter meant to do with that?

“What, afraid to bring your insanity back into the mix?” Stiles asks. Peter thinks that sometimes Stiles just talks to hear himself, to quiet some of the noise in his own head. Not that Peter minds -- Stiles’ voice is quite nice. It’s a bit deeper now than it was before, less frantic and frenetic. “Or is it that you think you’ll get bored?”

Everything Stiles says is a perfect mix of sarcasm and sincerity -- Peter finds he missed it.

“Six of one,” Peter says.

They sit in silence for a while. It’s more comfortable than Peter imagined it would be, having no words to buffer the chasm between them. Maybe Stiles has grown, maybe Peter has settled. Either way, the silence feels easy as he leans up against the balcony railing next to Stiles. Sometimes it feels distinctly like they vibrate at the same frequency -- there is no need for words.

A few minutes later, Stiles breaks the silence. “Did you think we’d still be a bunch of hoodlums, running around empty schools, being chased by psychopathic killers?” Peter can hear hear the teasing smile in Stiles’ voice. “That’s kind of hard to do when your alpha has a kid.”

Peter studies his nails. “Honestly, where’s the fun in running around empty schools if the psychopathic killer isn’t there to chase you anymore?” 

“Touché.”

“Does Jackson still require a sun-lamp?”

Stiles snorts. When he looks at Peter, Stiles looks _light_. Like the stresses of his high school days have gradually lifted from his shoulders and left him a different person. He likely still has worries and burdens, but Peter hopes they reside in the forms of cell phone bills and the local coffee shop being out of blonde roast, not the fear of being maimed in parking lots by feral creatures lacking any sort of sanity. Not that _he_ was a feral creature that lacked sanity -- he just lacked an anchor. 

“He does,” Stiles says. When he turns and leans back against the railing in the most precarious manner, his elbow brushes against Peter’s. Stiles looks up at the stars, pale expanse of neck practically glowing in the darkness. 

“You are putting a lot of faith in the structural engineering of Derek’s loft. You think that railing is going to hold you?” 

“Nah, big bad. I trust that you’d probably catch me before I fell.”

Peter thinks he might not be wrong, but the balcony railing doesn’t give out against both of their weights, so he doesn’t have an opportunity to find out.

\--

Peter watches Boyd and Erica get engaged.

It would be sweet, if it wasn’t sickening how they both drop down on a knee and propose to each other at the exact same time. They treat it a bit like a joke, which carries a pleasant sort of echo of how Peter remembers them all from years ago. Juvenile. Foolish. Carefree. Even in the face of danger, they all simply charged forward into the great abyss. Now, faced with the realities of both human adulthood and supernatural adulthood, they still plow blindly forward, souls still as untethered as before.

Peter finds himself finding it admirable, opposed to _idiotic_.

Even with all the tragedy they have faced, the pack is so surprisingly _solid._ The reality of it shocks Peter sometimes. He keeps expecting them to crumble, to collapse into teenage drama and petty feuds -- but the never do. 

A week later, when Stiles has to practically drag Erica back from the dead (Peter will give him shit for that later), Peter watches from a corner as Boyd stands watch by her bedside. Stiles is in a wolfsbane-induced trance, cross-legged on the floor next to Erica’s nearly-lifeless body and Boyd -- Boyd is just there. He’s not tearing up the room in grief, nor is he emotionally distancing himself -- both things Peter would have expected from such previously-human member of a younger pack. 

Boyd is _there_ , in the moment and supportive, with both a hand on Erica’s wrist and one on Stiles’ shoulder. 

These people, these _kids_ , are not running from life; they are embracing it and living in the moment, accepting whatever that may so mean for them. They have no defenses, no dark places to hide. Instead, they seek comfort in each other’s arms, in each other’s words. They are anchored to each other, to their pack connection, their friendship.

It’s all very adult, very reasonable.

Peter thinks it would be a bit more impressive if one of them weren’t currently dying. But one doesn’t exactly get to choose the particulars of these sorts of made-for-tv moments. 

In the darkness, Peter can see their engagement rings catching in the faint light of flickering candles.

When Erica drags out a rasping and _very alive_ breath and Stiles pulls himself from the depths of his trance, Peter tears his eyes away. 

The moment feels a bit too real for his tastes.

\--

“You make waffles?” Stiles says, letting himself into Peter’s loft. Again. Peter would wonder where he got the key, but he assumes Stiles has keys to everyone’s home. At this point, it’s more of a character trait than a surprise. 

“Shockingly, yes,” Peter says, after he’s finished with his bite. The blonde artisanal syrup really pairs well with the strawberries he picked up at the farmer’s market. “I find they’re actually quite easy for the average joe to make if you follow the instructions on the back of the box.”

Stiles settles against Peter’s counter, staring at him over the island. Maybe he feels better standing while Peter sits -- more comfortable. Like they’re evenly matched. Maybe they are, nowadays, even with them both standing. “You follow the directions?”

“Absolutely not. I like to put the blood of innocent woodland creatures into the mix and that throws off the proportions. Sit. Stop hovering. Would you like one?”

“As long as you promise no bunnies were harmed in the making of these waffles.”

Peter rolls his eyes. Stiles is kidding -- but only halfways. He’s still wary of Peter, like Lydia. He knows there’s nothing dubious in the waffles, but Peter suspects that Stiles maintains that Peter is up to no good. “I make them from scratch. The coagulating blood didn’t work out this go-around, so your delicate sensibilities are safe.” He pushes a plate toward Stiles. “This time, anyway.”

Appeased, Stiles digs in, making happy noises around his fork. Peter doesn’t interrupt him by telling him to be quiet -- it seems cruel.

When Stiles has an empty mouth, he continues. “I just find it weird that you eat waffles. That seems so _normal_. Mundane. It’s really ruining the mystique.”

Peter smiles around a forkful of sweet dough. It’s pleasing to think that Stiles thinks of him often enough to consider what does and doesn’t fit into his paradigm for Peter. “I find that if I live solely on a diet of the hopes and dreams of innocent youths, I tend to feel a bit bloated.”

“Have to maintain that serial killer physique, right?”

“Precisely,” Peter says as he stacks his empty plate on top of Stiles with more clatter than necessary. “Thank you for offering to do the dishes. That’s very kind of you.” It’s the least he can do after eating Peter’s brunch.

Stiles looks affronted for a moment, but a minute later he’s splashing water all over Peter’s counter and telling him how strange it is that his soap smells like _watermelon and mint_.

\--

It’s a gradual realization.

He can feel it, slowly steeping away in the back of his mind, his brain, pouring over the shape of it before he truly and fully realizes what it means. 

The full force of it hits him when Peter drives out to the mountains on a hazy August afternoon. The air is thick with humidity, with the full weight of late summer. He feels like crawling out of his skin -- so he decides to let himself do just that. Why not? Maybe he’ll kill a deer or startle an unsuspecting backpacker. He toys with the reality that he could switch it up, do the latter, and no one would ever know. But the taste of such useless, purposeless violence sours in his mouth. 

When he hikes into the woods and slides into his shift, he feels it: the firm and sharp _tug_ of pack. Unmistakable. Each connection pulls on him like a string connected straight to his chest, his heart. It feels like hope, like a hinderance. 

It feels like chains, caging him in.

It feels like a light, a way out of the endless darkness.

He spends longer in the woods than he originally meant to. No matter how far he runs, he cannot escape the steady pull of a connection that has already settled deep into his bones.

\--

“ _The Lost Boys_ , really?” Peter asks at the next pack movie night.

“Let us relive our teenage years in peace,” Stiles says, shoving a fistfull of buttery popcorn into his mouth before anyone can get a chance at it. Clearly well on the way to reliving his teenage years as he downs half a Mountain Dew. 

Peter laughs. “This was more _my_ teenage years than it was yours,” Peter says, listening to the familiar intro of _People are Strange_. He used to watch this movie with his cousins, back in the day. There is a fond place inside his heart for the Lost Boys and their vampire-ridden adventures on the Santa Carla boardwalk.

Not much about their actual shenanigans reminds Peter of his rather average (for a werewolf) teenage years, but he supposes it does at least partially echo the lives of the younger members of the pack. They were cursed with far more drama than actually necessary during high school and Peter is not at all envious. It did force most of them to grow up rather quickly, which seems to have left them as decently responsible adults.

“Shut up, Peter. We all know that the movie that sculpted your teenage years was _Nosferatu_.”

Peter takes the popcorn straight out of Stiles’ hand as he plops down on the couch next to him. Peter shoves the popcorn in his mouth, munching away as leans over Stiles to wipe his greasy hand down on the armrest of Derek’s couch. _Gross_.

He bares his teeth at Stiles when he pulls back, “I’ll shut up when you tell me you don’t find Kiefer Sutherland dreamy.”

They sit the popcorn in between their thighs and share. No one else asks for any, which suits Peter just fine. He’s not all too keen on sharing.

\--

“Take it,” Peter says, thrusting the wrapped present at Boyd and Erica.

Erica finally accepts it, looking at the box dubiously. Boyd refuses to touch it -- he’s smart. He probably doesn’t want what Peter bought for him, anyway. But he’ll need it.

“Congratulations,” Peter says, as Erica carefully opens the wrapped package with one wary claw. When she discards the paper, she is left holding a colorful box. She frowns as realization dawns.

“ _Turbo Tax_ ,” Boyd reads.

“As long as you say your vows before December 31,” Peter tells them, “you can celebrate the joy of marriage by filing your taxes jointly.”

Boyd takes the box from Erica, who looks supremely disappointed. It’s beautiful. Truly a Kodak Moment to cherish. 

“Thanks?” Boyd says, turning the computer program box over in his hands. He seems pleased that it’s not a bomb, if anything.

“You’re going to buy us a coffee maker, Peter. One of the fancy ones. It’s on the registry,” Erica tells him.

He might. If he does, he’s buying one in green, her least favorite color.

\--

No one ever asks Peter to babysit the pup. 

It’s not a surprise.

He _is_ stuck babysitting Stiles when he gets a rogue wisdom tooth extracted, though.

That’s also not a surprise.

“They stole my wisdom,” Stiles tells him in a dopey voice, mouth full of cotton.

“They did,” Peter agrees. “Looks like you’ll have to get by on your good looks alone.” 

Stiles beams, smile wide and toothy, until he’s drooling onto his bright red sweatshirt. The patch darkens, like blood.

\--

Something is holding him down, pulling him under --

\--drowning him

binding him to the darkness

 _alone_. bitterly and painfully 

it burrows into him, cold tendrils of it snaking underneath his skin -- burning and pulling and 

It’s so dark, so cloying, so oppressive. He tries to take a breath and finds he cannot, finds that the darkness is like blood -- thick and deadly -- choking him --

He fights. Because he knows no other way.

It’s a struggle, his limbs as heavy as lead, but eventually Peter claws his way out of the endless void and nothingness, gasping for air and clawing at his tethers. 

He tries to catch his breath, panting, claws pulling back from his trappings, from -- oh -- his sheets. 

The air if his loft is cool and still around him. Early morning sun is drifting through his windows, illuminating the stark space of his bedroom with pleasant, gentle light. 

_A dream_ , he breathes to himself. They are getting worse. The emptiness is getting harder to fight. He wonders if it’s something supernatural -- or if finally his own mental state is catching up with him. He’s not sure which theory he prefers.

Peter closes his eyes for a moment, steadying himself. He waits for his heart to stop thudding in his ears. When it slows to something resembling normal, he opens his eyes. 

In the bedroom doorway stands Stiles.

“How long have you been standing there?” Peter asks. His voice is rougher than he’d like. It feels remarkably like he swallowed sandpaper.

“Long enough to see your little Cujo routine,” Stiles says, putting his fingers up in the air like claws,

“Feel free to just let yourself in any time you like,” Peter sneers, grasping at the familiar threads of anger pulling at his lungs. It’s easier than focusing on the way he feels like he’s trembling, on the way the room feels unfamiliar and cold. Barren, like the hospital. He doesn’t care if Stiles lets himself in when Peter’s life is organized the way he’d like, when he looks solidly put together -- but he doesn’t want _this_. Doesn’t want Stiles peering behind the curtain, getting his inquisitive fingers all up in Peter’s red and bleeding guts.

Not like he expected Stiles to respect personal boundaries -- but a man can dream of all sorts of things.

“You look like hell,” Stiles says. He doesn’t leave. Instead, he moves forward and sits on the edge of Peter’s bed, uninvited.

At the encroachment into his space, Peter’s instincts both simultaneously twist into knots and also pleasantly unwind themselves. It’s a bit disconcerting, all of that happening at the same time. Stiles is annoying, frustrating, _unwelcome_ \-- but he is also pack. And the subconscious part of Peter knows that better than the conscious part of him, clearly. 

Stiles knows it too.

He is also _Stiles_ \-- which is somehow a whole other part of the equation entirely. In his sleepy post-nightmare state, Peter still isn’t sure how that factors in, other than _it does_.

“Either go take a shower or go back to sleep,” Stiles says, pulling out his phone. He is immediately absorbed into a game of what looks like _Fruit Ninja_. 

It would be rude, if it wasn’t so polite. 

There’s something about Stiles’ casual avoidance and his quiet acceptance that makes Peter’s chest ache. It sparks a low rumble in his chest that has him rearranging himself on the bed, flopping down in a crescent next to Stiles, one of his legs tucked under his pillow. It’s more his wolf than himself, Peter thinks drowsily, that likes having a member of his pack so close. It’s settling. Comforting. 

Stiles’ voice, making occasional commentary about life, about nightmares, about slicing fruit, is the worryingly comforting lullaby that sings Peter to sleep.

\--

Peter wakes again in the late morning. When he blinks his eyes open, the quality of light in his room is less dreamlike, more tangible. The creeping cold from his nightmares has completely receded -- even when he reaches out, looking for it in the crevices of his mind, he cannot find it. What he does find, though, is warmth.

So much warmth. 

He shifts. Finds that his hand is tangled in soft fabric. His cheek, pressed up against hot skin.

He had been content to luxuriate in the cloudy place between asleep and awake, but the sudden realization that he is not alone has him startling into consciousness too rapidly -- it is unpleasant and unkind, like jumping into a frozen lake after leaving the warmth of a sauna.

The second he starts to move away from the heat, the body in his bed makes a sleepy noise into the sheets. The sound, however, is what instantly has him calming down. That, too, is a surprise, to be analyzed at a later date. 

Peter carefully extricates himself from where he has ended up -- hand clenched in the soft fabric of Stiles’ sweatshirt, cheek pressed up against a warm sliver of exposed skin at his stomach -- likely uncovered when Stiles let himself fall backward into sleep. 

Peter’s can hear his coffee maker from his kitchen, automatically whirring to life to make his favored hazelnut coffee. Outside, there are birds chirping, as well as the distant noise of traffic and the playful babbling of children from a nearby playground. It’s all a pleasant background noise, setting a backdrop to a life that isn’t _his_. Peter hasn’t woken up next to anyone in _years_. The heat of a body near him, the gentle sounds of content breathing. The smell of someone in his sheets. It’s -- achingly domestic.

When Peter finally drags himself fully out of bed and begins meandering toward his shower, he drops a pillow on Stiles’ face. 

\--

“I don’t appreciate you trying to suffocate me in my sleep,” Stiles says when Peter finds him in the kitchen after his shower. Honestly, he expected the younger man long gone by now, his smell only a lingering memory. He wasn’t expecting the easy slope to Stiles’s shoulders, the confident way he leans against the concrete countertop like he belongs in Peter’s kitchen just as much as Peter does. His long fingers curl around Peter’s favorite mug like he owns it. The first cup of Peter’s favorite coffee is already half in his gut.

“I see that we are jumping right past the question of: why you fell asleep in my bed? Or, why you are here in the first place? Whichever you’d like to tackle first, please be my guest.”

Stiles just waves his hand, unflustered. It shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s so nonchalant and unbothered, but it is. “I’m sure I had a reason.”

“For visiting, or for nap time?” Peter strides past Stiles and pours himself a cup of coffee -- now, a little colder than he’d prefer, but it’ll do. He puts it in his second favorite mug.

“You don’t need a reason to nap,” Stiles says. “You _never_ need a reason to nap.” Affronted.

Stiles smells like coffee, like sleep, like warm and cozy mornings. Peter -- at least the wolf in him -- wants nothing more than to close the gap between them, to tuck his nose against Stiles’ neck, and then breathe him in. He aches for it -- the pain of it is sudden and dizzying.

Instead, he takes a sip of his coffee, assessing Stiles over the top of his mug.

Peter finds himself wondering, idly, if he could keep Stiles here. 

The thought is a tempting one, at least for the part of him that is more in tune with his younger self. His more, as Stiles would put it, creepy serial-killer self. 

The temptation of it, in and of itself, is rather shocking, as far as realizations go. And here Peter thought he was all done with self-discovery. Turns out, you _can_ teach an old dog new tricks.

It would be easy, too. First, a bit of effort -- then less, as inertia set in. He maybe even could make it happen simply through manipulation, opposed to brute force. A few words of warning here, a few threats there -- and Stiles would be his permanent house guest. Peter is a master-manipulator, after all these years. He knows how to get free things and favors, knows how to get people to look his way. He knows how to get what he wants, with the bare minimum of effort. But manipulating this for himself -- it’s, well --- it’s surprisingly unappealing, actually. It even leaves a bitter, sour taste in his mouth.

A few years ago, Peter would’ve been drooling for it, both the end-game result and the process itself. The manipulation would have been one of the major draws, no matter the final verdict -- win or loss.

The idea of Stiles _staying_ , of his scent seeping into every corner of the place, into Peter’s clothes and his pillow and his coffee cup -- that’s blindingly appealing. But the idea of forcing Stiles to stay is notably unappetizing. 

There’s still a part of Peter that yearns for the thrill of manipulation, the fun of the game -- but it doesn’t have the pull that it used to. Doesn’t have that familiar _zing_. 

\--

Peter dreams of:

of murky waves of dark red, silently lapping at his ankles as he wades out to sea,

of the absence of sound,

of nothing,

of the weight of time and possibilities missed, resting unforgiving and heavy on his shoulders.

\--

The Stiles Revelation provides only a subtle shift in his world view.

Peter expected something a bit more earth-shattering, honestly. A bit more drama, a bit more upheaval. The desire to have someone in his life, in his space, has been foreign to him for years. The idea of having that without manipulation is even more strange. The fact that he desires someone to desire him plain and simple, slips over him like a new and comfortable blanket -- familiar, yet entirely unknown. The need for it seems to have been woven into him without his noticing, straight down to his very core.

A sudden paradigm shift should really be more disruptive. It should at least be even a little annoying. It isn’t, though. 

It’s pretty par for the course, apparently. His life has never been particularly by the books.

Instead, Peter takes stock. He’s good at that.

He outlines his life, characterizes his day to day routine, takes note of where he is.

He comes to one conclusion: he’s definitely having that midlife crisis that people talk about -- it’s just come a bit early, is all.

\--

Time passes. 

Peter cannot stop it, cannot even slow it, as much as he wants to take the universe’s clock into his hands and crush it beneath his fingers. He wants to feel time crumble into dust. He wants to blow it into the wind and be done with it, once and for all.

It passes and passes. With each second, each minute, each day, he can feel the effects of it, looming like an axe above his head. It’s not death he truly fears, but the change that comes from the passing of time.

The way that the moments dull his edges like unrelenting waves on a piece of glass. 

Peter is smoother than he was five years ago. Than he was yesterday. 

Without himself, surely he’ll be all alone.

\--

“Are you avoiding Stiles?” Cora asks, never one to beat around the bush.

“Why would you ask that?” Peter replies, studying his nails while he ignores the buzz of his phone from yet another text he’s not going to answer. He knows Cora can hear the phone in his pocket.

“He’s not good at being ignored. Unless he’s actively done something wrong, he’s not going to be deterred by the silent treatment,” Cora warns. “Besides, I thought that sort of thing was beneath you.”

“Nothing is beneath me.”

“Yeah, you’re totally right,” Cora says, rolling her eyes.

“Careful,” Peter says, tucking his still-buzzing phone into the space between couch cushions. “Your face will get stuck that way.” 

\--

Peter isn’t actually sure where Stiles lives. He’s also not sure where he works or even what he does. When he brings this up with his nephew, Derek just laughs. “What, did you think he was a barista, still?”

“I wasn’t aware that he ever _was_ a barista.” This means that Peter can now make Stiles make him coffee. When they’re back to talking again. Not that they’re specifically _not_ talking -- but Peter is putting a little distance between them for a moment. 

It’s a curious thing, the desire to do that. His first and more pressing desire, is to overwhelm himself with Stiles’ presence. He wants to suffocate himself in everything that is Stiles, wants to drown himself -- he blames that instinct on his wolf. Generally, Peter doesn’t like blaming too much on animal instincts -- it isn’t really a terribly accurate thing to do, anyway, but sometimes it’s the only acceptable answer. Most of the things his baser instincts tell him to do are all facets of his personality, anyway. His wolf is sneaky, manipulative, and controlling. Peter is, too. They are one in the same, but sometimes their priorities don’t entirely line up. While Peter’s wolf wants to run headlong into something that’s looking very precariously like attraction, Peter wants to slowly back away. 

He spent too long in his own head, alone, to be completely comfortable with strong interpersonal connections, anymore. Even the tug of pack is frighteningly unfamiliar at times. 

And yet, he cannot ignore the pull of it. 

Just like he cannot ignore the pull of Stiles. 

But what he _really_ can’t ignore the guilt.

“He _does_ like to go to the coffee shop off 5th and Main on Tuesday afternoons, though,” Cora tells him.

“That’s nice,” Peter says, already mentally rearranging his schedule. He shouldn’t feel _guilty_ for ignoring Stiles, but he does. Every time his phone buzzes with a new text, his heartbeat kicks up in anticipation, then drops in guilt. Casually passing him at a coffee shop is the best solution, really. It’s perfect. Their interaction will be limited, the talk will be small, and Peter’s home won’t smell like Stiles for hours afterward. _And_ , most importantly, Peter’s guilt will be lifted. 

Cora rolls her eyes again. “Can you please stop having whatever midlife crisis you’re having? It’s really inconvenient for everyone else involved.”

Peter hums. He’d like to stop, as well. But beggars can’t be choosers -- and Peter is _alive_ , so he doesn’t get much other choice in the matter. Alive is better than not. It’s also certainly better than being comatose in the endless darkness, too. Now, Peter’s just along for the ride.

“Just like, pull yourself together,” Cora suggests.

“How insightful. You should go into psychotherapy,” Peter says.

“In all seriousness though, just stop thinking about it. You’ve made it this far. You have a house and a pack. Friends. You’re more of a person than you were five years ago. You’re a work in progress, sure, but isn’t that like, the human condition? Besides,” Cora says, “you’re starting to get a lot of creases on your forehead from worrying.”

“ _Hearsay_ ,” Peter says, and squints into the blank screen of his phone to check on the state of his forehead.

Of course, while his phone is in his hand, it vibrates with a new text from Stiles.

\--

“Double shot vanilla frappe, extra whip.” Peter sets the drink down in front of Stiles, who is hunched over his laptop in the sunny window of the coffee shop.

“What?” Stiles says, leaning up and stretching. It’s to his credit that he doesn’t even startle, doesn’t jump like the easily-spooked boy Peter remembers from years ago. Stiles’ arms are long and lean and he yawns at the end of his stretch. “I didn’t even notice you come in.” Stiles takes a slow drink of the frapp, brown eyes closing -- then, Stiles immediately opens his eyes again, though they’re narrowed. “How do you know what I drink?”

“I’m stalking you,” Peter says, and then immediately feels a twinge of regret at the words. It’s so easy to banter with Stiles, to come dangerously close to something like flirting. Which is -- exactly what he is trying to avoid, keeping his distance and all. Peter isn’t sure what he’s meant to gain by keeping some space between them, but simplicity is certainly something he’s aiming for. All he wants is a simple life -- and it had been coming so easily, too. 

The addition of Stiles into anything removes the simplicity -- as easy as salting the earth.

“Well obviously,” Stiles says. “I’m very stalkable.”

“Mm.”

Stiles kicks out the chair opposite him and it clatters against Peter’s leg. “Come sit? Unless you have important serial-killer places to be.”

He doesn’t.

“You’ve been busy,” Stiles says, when Peter sits. Stiles closes his laptop so that he can look at Peter unobstructed over the small coffeehouse table. It feels like a final gesture, like Peter now can’t excuse himself after an obligatory sixty seconds. This is Stiles making space for him, making time. Peter wonders how Stiles ever got so decisive in his actions, so resolute. Everything he does now is with ease and precision. Peter wonders if it’s the magic that flows through his veins -- does it come with a need to be precise, to be determined?

Peter watches as Stiles stirs the frappe with the straw and the action is weirdly focused, lacking the frenetic energy that Stiles once had unhinged. Now, he still has all the same energy -- perhaps even more -- but it is tethered, it is reigned.

“One does what one can to keep busy,” Peter says. He takes a sip of his own coffee -- it’s black. Now that he thinks about it, he spent more mental effort and time on Stiles’ drink and barely gave a passing thought to his own. Peter is supposed to be the selfish one -- he’s slipping.

Or maybe he was being selfish in ordering Stiles a drink, in offering something he couldn’t refuse. A coffee in exchange for the absolution of Peter’s guilt. Yeah -- Peter’ll take that one.

“You seem rather engaged,” Peter remarks, gesturing at the table, at Stiles’ piles of work.

Stiles just shrugs. “This is the life I live. It’s super glamorous, staying up until all hours of the night, researching.”

Peter still doesn’t know what Stiles does. But clearly, he can make the astute observation that it has something to do with research.

“Still sleeping odd hours?” Peter asks.

“I fell asleep on the foot of your bed at, like, six am. I think that’s a resounding yes. Oh -- did you think we weren’t going to talk about that? Because we’re going to talk about that.”

Peter doesn’t really want to talk about it at all.

“Buddy, everyone has nightmares,” Stiles says. “Sure, we don’t all look like the creature from the black lagoon coming out of them, but that doesn’t mean they’re not bad. You don’t go through a childhood like ours without keeping some of that trauma stored in your subconscious for some super-fun-dream-time. Do you think Scott doesn’t have nightmares, that I don’t? And we didn’t even go through half the stuff you and Derek did. But,” Stiles takes a long sip of his milky-coffee-beverage. Peter watches the line of his throat bob with his swallow, “but we have each other. That’s like, the whole point of pack.”

Peter hums.

“Don’t tell me you don’t feel the pull of it, big bad. If _I_ can feel it, you can feel it.” Stiles gestures at the nothingness between them, like the lines tethering them together are visible. Peter doesn’t necessarily like focusing on them -- he can’t help how put-off he is about them in the first place. He certainly doesn’t like thinking about just how strong they are. 

“Of course you can feel it,” Peter says, instead of truly acknowledging the problem at hand. “You’re the emissary. You’d be useless if you couldn’t feel it.”

Stiles rolls his eyes. Somehow, it comes off a bit different than when Cora does it. 

“Tell me about them.” Stiles says. It’s not even a question.

“Tell you about what, exactly?”

“Your dreams,” he says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. The easiest.

Peter smirks and takes his coffee in hand. “Would you like to read my tarot cards, too?” Peter slides out of his seat and pushes in his chair. “Have a good afternoon, Stiles.”

\--

Peter doesn’t avoid pack dinners.

Firstly, it would be far too obvious that something is bothering him. And then someone might _ask_. Whatever _is_ bothering him is nothing terribly concrete, other than the oppressive desire to fight the instinct to settle. It’s a very nebulous sort of feeling -- a general and unending unease. 

Secondly, he _can’t_ truly avoid pack gatherings. He can slink along the outskirts of them, but he cannot shirk them all together. His pull toward the pack is too strong, even though he would rather it not be. The instinct to be there when his pack is gathering is all-encompassing. Besides, without it, he would grow unsteady. Unhinged. And he’s stood at that crossroads before.

Thirdly, he can use it to his advantage. The more time he spends at these dinners, the less time he necessarily needs to socialize with the pack altogether. The less time he has to spend with Stiles. 

At the next pack dinner Peter forces himself to attend (it’s not forcing when his legs carry him there so easily, he reminds himself), Stiles is already there when he shows up. Stiles is curled onto the couch with Erica and Boyd and he is -- reading tarot cards. He has a silk cloth spread out over the couch cushions and he is gesturing animatedly at a spread of cards. His eyes flick up at Peter when Peter comes in.

Peter ignores him.

He used to ignore Stiles so often, without particularly trying. Why is it so hard, now?

Lydia helps him with the guac again. Peter cuts the jalapenos while she handles the cilantro. “So, you’re sticking around for good, it seems.”

“So it seems,” Peter says. It hadn’t really been his plan, despite buying the condo and everything. He hadn’t thought he was settling, growing roots, until it was too late. 

“If you’re having seconds thoughts,” Lydia starts, then stops. “Typically people get cold feet before investing in real estate.”

Peter can’t argue that. “They typically get cold feet before decorating their new home, as well.”

“Or before they let someone decorate it for them,” Lydia says. Ah, so she knows about Stiles’ brush with Good Housekeeping. “Is that it, then?” Lydia asks, stirring the guac.

“Is what it?”

“Is it that, now that your place is all decorated and homey, you’re disquieted and disappointed that it still still doesn’t feel like _home_?”

Well, now that Peter thinks about it…Derek’s loft feels more like home than Peter’s. And he’s only ever here for pack dinners. The assertion is startlingly accurate. He doesn’t validate her with an answer, though. It’s not like Peter wants something to truly call _home_ \-- he’s discomforted by the whole idea of it in the first place. 

“That’s what I thought,” she says anyway, scooping up the chopped jalapenos and mixing them into the guacamole. “I never thought you were someone to idly sit by and watch as life happened to them. Or are you?” Lydia asks. 

“Did everyone get psychology degrees while I was away?” Peter says, thinking of Cora with her life advice. 

Lydia shrugs. “I have more practical experience than most therapists, anyway. But, if you must know, one of my masters is in psychology.” Peter doesn’t doubt that. Just like with Stiles, he doesn’t know what Lydia does, but he _does_ know that she’s smart. She has a PhD as well, but that’s a mystery, too. “But you’re an open book, Peter Hale. You’re standing in a room of mirrors. Everyone here is broken in their own way, and they know that you’re broken, too. Just because your scars are gone doesn’t mean you’re fully healed.”

Lydia dips a chip into the guac and hums. It takes Peter a moment to realize they are in the kitchen alone together, that Lydia is only a couple feet away from him. There is no piece of furniture in between them anymore, shielding her from him. He could, right now, lean forward and get her throat in his teeth. He could tear open her wrists with his claws. There’s nothing stopping him, not even Lydia’s past vigilance. It would be easy.

Part of him wants to, just to prove that he can.

The other, more frightening part, raises its haunches and calls her _pack_. Calls her a friend.

“When did you decide to doll out life advice like you’re paid for it?” Peter asks, instead. He reaches around her, grabs a chip, and tries some of the fruit of their endeavors, as well. It’s good.

“Around the time I dumped Jackson, moved away, and gained some perspective on everything.”

“And now you’re -- back here and back together with the lizard, again?” Peter asks. “A pity. You’ve truly become a hell of a catch.”

Lydia laughs and the sound is beautiful in the airy kitchen. “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Hale. Even if I was with Jackson -- which I’m not, thank you -- you’re not my type. And I’m not yours.”

“I’m everyone’s type,” Peter smirks.

“Mm,” Lydia hums. “You’re certainly something.” 

\--

“Pick a card, any card,” Stiles says. He’s found Peter out on the balcony of the loft again. 

“Come here often?” Peter asks, raising an eyebrow when he looks over at Stiles.

“Don’t pretend you’re not avoiding me, big bad. Pick a card.” Ouch. Stiles doesn’t pull his punches, clearly.

“I don’t think this is proper tarot etiquette,” Peter says, pulling a card from the fan that Stiles has presented him with. “Some spark you are.” Peter doesn’t look at his card, just hands it back to Stiles, who takes one look at it and laughs. He laughs so hard that Peter actually debates reaching out to steady him. When Peter catches a glimpse of the card, he sees a skeleton, a scythe. He doesn’t know much about tarot, but he knows that card. He can’t _not_ , in this world they live in. Peter can’t help but chuckle at it, too, even though he’s not feeling particularly jovial.

“ _Death_ , Peter, really?” Stiles asks, when he has finally composed himself. “God, you are like a caricature of yourself.”

“I aim to be predictable.”

“No, you really _don’t_.” 

Peter agrees, but doesn’t say as much. Instead, he says, “aren’t you going to tell my fortune?”

“That’s not the way tarot works, and you know it.”

“I’m reasonably certain it doesn’t work like a cheap magic trick, either,” Peter replies.

“If you want, I can make your card disappear and find it again behind your ear,” Stiles says, waggling his eyebrows. Peter...doesn’t doubt his ability to do that. “In all seriousness, though, it kind of _does_ work like that. Picking a card is the same as doing a spread, in a way. It’s a lot more subjective, and a lot more general, but it’s pretty similar.”

Peter leans against the railing of Derek’s balcony, letting the night air seep into his skin. The street lights bathe Stiles in an eerie yellow glow. “So, are the cards saying I’m going to die?” He can’t help the _thud thud thud_ of his heart. He’s been dead before -- he’s not exactly keen on doing it again so soon. Even if he’s not afraid of it, it’s still an unpleasant reality he doesn’t want to face. 

Stiles laughs. “God, no. Probably not, anyway. But it would be funny to let you think that.”

“I remember you being nicer,” Peter says, even though he doesn’t.

“I was never nice.”

“No, you weren’t.” It’s one of the reasons Peter enjoyed Stiles so much more than the rest of the little fledgling pack, back in the day. 

“ _Death_ is more about change than anything else. It’s a common misconception that it’s actually foreboding or whatever. It’s about focusing on what is truly important, breaking things down to the fundamentals to increase self awareness. It can mean the death of something, like a relationship, or a period in your life, or a fear,” Stiles says.

“How very open-ended.”

Stiles laughs again. “Yeah, right?”

They sit in silence for a long moment. Peter watches a few cars drive down Derek’s street, then he looks up at the sky, at the stars.

“I’m not very good at Astrology,” Stiles says, after a long while. Peter honestly thought the kid would’ve gone inside by now. Peter isn’t much fun to be around when he doesn’t want to be.

It feels remarkably like a moment where he should say something. The air is heavy with unspoken words, practically dripping with potential. And yet, he can’t bring himself to. Instead, they sit outside in silence until Stiles shivers with cold and eventually slips back inside. 

\--

Stiles lets himself into Peter’s apartment again the next week. Peter can hear his heartbeat before anything else. No -- that’s a lie -- he feels the familiar tug of pack, of Stiles, before he even picks up the familiar beat. Unfortunately, Peter is in no real shape to scare him away. He doesn’t look very scary, dressed in his rattiest jeans and a paint-covered undershirt, paintbrush in hand. 

“Wow,” Stiles says, when he wanders into Peter’s living room. It’s not a huge mess, but there’s a dropcloth on the ground and everything is off the one wall that Peter is painting, in a pile on his couch. He hadn’t been expecting visitors. 

He certainly hadn’t been expecting Stiles.

Stiles tucks his hands into the pockets of his pants and rocks back on his heels, letting out a low whistle. “That’s...certainly a choice,” he says, taking a long gander at the accent-wall that Peter is painting. 

“Isn’t it?”

The wall is blood red, a deep and saturated hue. It catches on the mid-afternoon light and looks something close to real, with depth and beauty and intrigue. It’s much less boring than the white wall, as much as Peter enjoyed staring off into static space into the open blankness of it. This -- this is a choice. It’s _Peter’s_ choice. He’s taking some of the nothingness in his life, the void, and filling it in.

The parts of the paint that have dried look classy. The wet parts? Do look rather strikingly close to blood.

“Really embracing the murder-chic, huh?” Stiles says, but he strangely doesn’t sound appalled. Or disgusted. Instead, he hums. “I think I like it.”

Peter can’t help but acknowledge the pleased feeling that stirs in his chest at Stiles’ approval. He also can’t help feeling annoyed by it, also. This is _his_ choice, _his_ house. He doesn’t need anyone’s approval. But it _is_ nice. Apparently. 

“I have an aesthetic to keep up,” Peter replies.

“God, you are like world’s biggest hipster,” Stiles says, picking up a paintbrush. There are still parts of the wall that need to be painted. After that, it’ll need another coat. For once, Peter doesn’t feel like pushing Stiles out. Also, he isn’t about to refuse the help. 

“Ah,” Peter tsks, and grabs the paintbrush from him. He plucks at Stiles’ shirt, pinching a bit of fabric right in the center of Stiles’ ribcage. “Not in this. You’ll get paint all over it.”

“Oh, yeah, let me just change into that spare set of clothes I carry with me everywhere just in case I need to help paint a wall.” Stiles rolls his eyes. Peter knows that Stiles keeps an extra set in his car, which means he used it and didn’t re-stock, or he’s just being deliberately difficult. 

Peter shoves Stiles in the direction of his bedroom. “Workout clothes are in the third drawer down. Go find yourself something, and then you can make yourself useful.”

“Bossy.”

When Stiles comes back into the living room, freshly changed into Peter’s clothes, Peter realizes that this whole thing might not have been the best idea in the world. Peter’s clothes actually fit Stiles decently, but that isn’t really important. What _is_ important, is that Stiles smells overwhelmingly like Peter, with a gentle undercurrent of laundry detergent and cedar. It’s impossible to miss. Shrouded in threadbare clothes that Peter only uses to work out in, Stiles is practically an advertisement for what his instincts look for in a long-term relationship. It hits Peter so hard and so fast that he doesn’t even see it coming. It’s a little dizzying, really. 

It had been one thing to realize that he didn’t mind Stiles’ company, that he perhaps wanted something _more_ \-- it’s entirely another to be assaulted with this visual, this thought, and to find it appealing. Strikingly so. Peter hasn’t wanted something long-term or stable in _years_. Since before the fire. He doesn’t even know what to do with that desire. 

So, after he’s drinken in his fill of Stiles, Peter hands him the brush again. “What are you waiting for, then? Get to work.”

The work is easy and quiet. Stiles is uncharacteristically silent, not his usual talkative self, which should bother Peter more than it does. It doesn’t feel forced or uncomfortable, though, so he takes what he can get.

After some lemonade, about halfway through their second coat of the wall, Stiles laughs and presses a red-palmed hand to the center of Peter’s chest. How he hadn’t noticed Stiles painting his hand, Peter isn’t really sure. “Tell me about your dreams,” Stiles says.

Peter wonders if there’s something magic about the press of his hand, about the way he _wants_ to answer. About the way he can barely stop the words from spilling out of his mouth. But, knowing Stiles, it’s just the moment, the absolute absurdity of it all. When Stiles peels his hand back, there’s a deep red handprint over Peter’s heart, clinging to threadbare white cotton. 

“They’re nothing,” Peter replies. 

“Well _obviously_. If they were prophetic, we probably would’ve heard about it by now. I’d be able to tell, too.”

Peter raises his eyebrows. Stiles doesn’t elaborate.

“Sorry, big bad. Looks like you’re just the garden-variety of crazy that we all are. So, c’mon. Tell me about ‘em,” Stiles continues, staring at the handprint he left on Peter’s chest. He doesn’t look like he necessarily thought that through -- like he just did it on impulse and is now coming back to his senses. 

“They’re nothing,” Peter repeats. “They’re literally -- nothing. I dream of _lack_. Of an unending sea of darkness. Sometimes, of blood.” Peter waves a hand. “They’re very boring. Sort of sparse in decipherable details.”

Stiles hums. “I think that a lack of anything in your dreams is pretty telling.” He picks at the paint drying on his hands, getting it under his fingernails. Unsurprisingly, it looks like blood. Peter’s wolf wants to lick it off his fingers, even though he knows it won’t taste like anything good. It’s a shockingly difficult impulse to curb, but Peter manages.

“Cora said you were having a midlife crisis,” Stile suggests.

“Everyone fancies themselves a therapist in the McCall-Hale pack, don’t they.”

“I think,” Stiles says, “that you’re just not used to having anything. You got so used to having nothing for so long that you’re paralyzed by it. So, the idea of nothingness is a nightmare in an of itself, but so is change.” 

Peter wants very much to take the can of paint and upend it over Stiles’ head. Both for the satisfaction of it, and also to see Stiles dripping in blood red. 

Stiles isn’t wrong. Peter just hasn’t really stopped to think about it much. “Dreams don’t have to mean anything.”

“They don’t,” Stiles agrees. “I had a dream two nights ago about taking a raft down the Grand Canyon, accompanied by my best friend Lestat. We fed pigeons when we arrived in New York city, but we were feeding the pigeons pistachios instead of breadcrumbs. It was a pain, cracking open all those shells, you know? Lestat wouldn’t even help with his teeth. Anyway,” Stiles continues, “I don’t think that has much at all to say about my general subconscious, but I know that when I dream about drowning, I’m stressed. Or when I dream about being chased through the woods by a faceless monster, I’m usually running from something subconscious. It’s all about being in tune with yourself.”

“Who’s to say you don’t subconsciously want to feed pigeons with an age-old vampire?”

“I’m a one-supernatural-creature-kinda guy, big bad. Vampires aren’t really my jam.”

Peter hums, and starts painting again. This conversation isn’t nearly as bad as he’d imagined it. He knew Stiles would ask again, at some point. The kid never truly gives something up. 

“Change isn’t so bad, you know. Change has you being part of a healthy pack, instead of the crazed leader of an insane one. It has you -- you know --” Stiles gestures at the wall and Peter fears for the dripping of his brush, “doing domestic shit like this instead of having your midlife crisis in some seedy motel in the middle of nowhere with no one around. It has you being a real and functional person, with interests and feelings and stuff.”

“I suppose it does.” Peter is quiet for a moment, just painting. Eyes focused ahead on his blood red wall. “You look good in my clothes,” Peter says, finally. 

“Yeah that’s -- what?” Stiles says, looking down at himself. “Yeahhh...these are truly the epitome of fashion, aren’t they?” 

There’s a blush threatening to cross his face, like he’s not sure how to take Peter’s words: insult or compliment, threat or praise? He seems to settle somewhere near ‘disdainful truth,’ which seems on par for Peter’s past. Even Peter wouldn’t have been sure he meant it as heavy praise if he didn’t know how much the thoroughly enjoys looking at Stiles in them.

“You should have pursued a career modeling for Vogue,” Peter says, continuing on with the joke he hadn’t made, but that Stiles had settled on. 

“Hey, watch it,” Stiles says, plopping his paintbrush down on the dropcloth, done with his section of the wall. “I have the ability to make hand-prints over all of your nice white non-accent walls if I so choose.”

“So you do,” Peter says, imagining the handprints that might happen if Peter were to rush at Stiles and shove him against the wall. Pin him in. Trap him. 

His own handprints right next to Stiles’ handprints. Just a mess of red paint on pristine walls.

Instead, he keeps painting. He finishes up the rest of the wall and then pauses to admire his own handiwork. It looks _good_. Deep and saturated and eye-catching. With all the little things Stiles gave him, it’ll look even better. It’ll start to look _cozy_ , like Derek’s loft. Lived-in and appreciated. A _home_. 

“You know, it actually looks kinda rad.”

It does look rad.

Peter shifts on his feet and stretches. He can feel the strange weight of his shirt, heavy with that handprint of paint. In some places, it’s seeped through the cotton and paint-laden fabric is sticking to his skin. Peter looks down and rubs a thumb through the red paint. Still wet.

He takes one step towards Stiles, then another. Until they’re less than a foot apart.

“My, Grandma, what big eyes you have,” Stiles says. There should be fear in his voice, with Peter acting so predatory. There isn’t.

“I suppose I should thank you for the home invasion that ended in handyman work,” Peter says, smiling with all of his teeth. Now that he’s advancing on Stiles, he feels like he’s back to having the upper hand. Even if he’s only acting as a predator, it still gives him a confident rush. 

“Not if you’re going to eat me. Those teeth are looking miiighty sharp up close, big bad.”

“I wouldn’t dare dream of it,” Peter says, reaching out to thumb over Stiles’ cheekbone with his paint-covered thumb. It leaves a smear of red on the sharp cut of his cheek. Stiles, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. He’s probably learned after all these years to keep a stiff spine around werewolf posturing. It’s a smart plan; Peter’s wolf doesn’t beg for the chase that it might if Stiles were to worm himself away. 

Stiles stays as still as a statue when Peter pulls away to admire his handiwork.

After a heavy moment, during which the air feels sparked with enough electricity to set Peter’s teeth on edge, he pulls back. He dumps the paintbrushes unceremoniously on the center of the dropcloth and tosses any trash in a pile near them. He checks his bare feet for spots of wet paint, and then pushes past a still-statuesque Stiles for the kitchen where there is fresh lemonade waiting.

Stiles follows him there after far too long. Presumably, he’d been standing in Peter’s living room, unmoving, where Peter left him. Peter had been trying not to look.

“Just when I thought you’d lost your creepy stalker-wolf ways, Peter,” Stiles muses, picking up the lemonade that Peter poured for him. Despite bringing it up, Stiles doesn’t sound too scared. His heart is beating faster than usual, but there is not a hint of sickeningly sweet scent of fear clinging to him. Just the warm and musky and citrusy scent of Stiles himself. 

“I have appearances to keep up, you know.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles laughs. “Evidently.”

That night, after Stiles leaves, Peter falls asleep on his couch, staring at his new red wall. There’s nothing up on it yet -- it’s just a sea of red for him to lose himself in. It’s so much better than in his dreams. Real and tangible, it’s less overwhelming, less to drown in. It helps that Peter put it there, that he’s taking his subconscious into his own hands, wrestling it into submission. 

Even with the sea of his wall in front of him, he goes to sleep thinking of the smear of red on Stiles’ cheek.


	2. Chapter 2

When Peter dreams, he dreams of Stiles’ magic.

It’s not green this time, twisting through his hands; instead, it’s the color of fire. Peter should back away, but he doesn’t. He inches closer and closer, until the magic that is wrapping around Stiles’ forearms moves to wrap around Peter, too.

It pulls and tugs at him, familiar in the way it seeps deep into his bones. Like the gentle weight of _pack_ , of the ties he cannot break. But it doesn’t feel heavy, or frightening, or even particularly confining. He feels free, but tethered.

Anchored.

Stiles sits with Peter in his dream on a cliff overlooking a sea of red, flames of magic circling around the two of them. Stiles dangles his legs over the cliff.

“Careful,” Peter warns him. He knows what that sea can do. It can overwhelm, it can suffocate, it can drown.

“What, you’re saying you won’t come to my rescue?”

Peter would. He’d dive into an ocean of blood, a sea of flames, to rescue Stiles, if needs be.

He knows that now.

\--

Turns out, Stiles isn’t ever in need of much rescuing.

“Well,” Peter says, cleaning blood off his claws. He’d taken care of a few gremlins on his way into the cave system some of the pack had been exploring. Derek and Cora had gotten separated from Stiles, so Peter went in after him. “Here I was thinking you might need some help.”

“I’m not exactly a damsel in distress, Peter.”

He’s really not. There’s a sea of gremlin corpses surrounding Stiles. Stiles doesn’t even look worse for the wear -- just a little sweaty and dirty from crawling through a cave. The air smells like magic -- a little bit like sulfur and a lot like Stiles. In the cavern they’re standing in, with no fresh source of air, the smell lingers. Peter knows it’s going to cling to his clothes, his hair, his nostrils, for days.

There’s still licks of green swirling around Stiles’ hands: he’s ready, if anything else comes his way. For a moment, Peter wonders if he could be Stiles’ next attacker, if Stiles pictures him that way, like he used to. Or, if he pictures Peter as pack, like he says. He wouldn’t be wrong to assume the former, just smart. Peter doesn’t think he’ll ever be fully _good_ , or even halfways. He’s always been self-serving, egotistical. Even in a pack, he knows he’ll always want to come out on top.

“Clearly not. A pity, really. I figured I’d at least have a bit more maiming to do before I called it a day.”

“It’s never a pity when I get to see you actually get your hands dirty,” Stiles says, eyes drifting to Peter’s blood covered claws.

“Unfair that I never get to see you get yours dirty.”

Stiles shrugs. “You’ve never seen me bake. Now _that’s_ a messy process.”

“Is it always green?” Peter asks, gesturing at the tendrils of magic around Stiles’ hands. In his dreams, he thinks that it had been the color of flames, but he can’t quite remember. He thinks he wouldn’t mind fire so much if it was Stiles controlling it.

Maybe it means something if he’s dreaming of fire in a non-threatening way.

Maybe it’s even more threatening than before.

“Yeah,” Stiles says. “Why?”

Peter doesn’t answer that. “What do you do for a living?” He could ask Cora, but she’d only laugh at him for not knowing. She probably wouldn’t answer, anyway. Best to go straight to the source.

“What?” Stiles laughs. “You seriously don’t know?”

Stiles begins gathering shards of magic crystals that the gremlins had been hoarding and wreaking havoc with. Each time he touches the blue crystals, they glow a soft pink and then explode into a swirl of colors underneath Stiles’ fingers. When Peter tries to help, Stiles pushes him away. “Don’t touch, you big dumb. God, where is your self-preservation instinct? You die once and suddenly you’re immortal, huh?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you,” Peter replies, returning to his previous question as he leans leans against the wall of the cavern. If Stiles wants to do all the work, then Peter isn’t going to stop him.

“Dooo you think that I’m doing this for fun, big bad?” Stiles gestures around himself.

Peter shrugs. “You’ve always had a very strange definition of fun. From what I recall, you were up to some weird things in high school. Like cavorting with murderers.”

“True ‘dat. But no, really. This is my job.” The crystals plink together musically when Stiles stacks them carefully on top of one another. The jar that Stiles is putting them in is smoking over with a rainbow of colors, something like dry ice. Eventually, Stiles closes it after putting the last of the shards in, trapping that glowing mist inside. “I’m a consultant. A supernatural consultant.”

“It sounds like you’re trying to live inside an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

Stiles shrugs. “If it pays the bills, whatever. And it definitely pays the bills.”

Evidently, supernatural consulting must be lucrative enough that Stiles clearly isn’t hurting for money, because he demands they all go out for steak afterwards, on him.

“Magic like that wears me out. I need a bunch of iron,” he explains, midway through a bite of rather rare steak.

Peter sits next to Stiles, thigh-to-thigh, crammed into a booth with their pack, and lets the heat of Stiles seep into his bones.

Each mouthful of steak Peter swallows down still tastes like magic. It’s really not bad at all.

\--

“What did Stiles think of your murder wall?” Cora asks, upside down on Peter’s couch.

Peter puts a bowl of popcorn on her stomach. It’s covered in a variety of spices and dripping with butter and a pinch of sugar. His specialty. “Sit up. Don’t get popcorn all over my couch or I’ll skin you and put you up as a decoration on the murder wall.”

“But what did he think?” Cora tips herself upright and sits cross-legged around the bowl of popcorn, munching away.

“He liked it,” Peter says. He also thinks it’s true, which helps. “He helped paint it.”

Cora hums. “I think I like it too. It’s more -- you.”

Derek, when he comes over later, just stares at the wall for a long time before rolling his eyes.

\--

Peter doesn’t interact with much of the pack on their own, outside of Derek, Cora, Stiles, and -- surprisingly -- Lydia.

But he does make an effort to attend pack nights where they’re all playing Cards Against Humanity. It’s a tradition that he suggested, with Stiles backing him. Peter is proud that it’s stuck. Also, given the nature of the game, he’s also one step closer to making them all worse people. Because that’s what Cards Against Humanity truly does: it brings out the worst in people.

They’ve even made cards for each other.

Peter’s is “ _ending up in a coma after a horrific fire, becoming a crazed alpha, dying in another horrific fire, coming back to life as a crazed psychopath, and still somehow ending up a boring old fogey._ ”

Peter is pretty sure Stiles wrote his.

It’s after one of their little games that he ends up spending some time with Isaac, Erica, and Boyd. It’s nothing special, just having some wolfsbane-laced margaritas in Derek’s kitchen while the rest of the pack sets up for some movie, but it’s nice. It’s centering, even if Peter spends most of his time ragging on Isaac’s fashion choices and asking Erica and Boyd how they like their lime-green coffee maker. It had taken him ages to find, but it had been worth it just to see Erica’s face when she unwrapped the present: complete and utter hatred. “Coffee is coffee,” Boyd had said.

Peter thinks that Erica appreciated the thought behind the aggression behind the gift, more than anything else, though.

Isaac is bouncing Scott and Allison’s pup on his hip. He’s the kid’s favorite, which means he is more often than not stuck with babysitting duty -- which he doesn’t seem to mind.

What Peter truly enjoys doing is simply sitting back and admiring the dynamics of the pack. It looks like a _true pack_ , the way they should be, not the way that they had all been trying to be years ago. Without them truly realizing it, they’ve integrated perfectly. They’ve even welcomed Peter in, at least to some extent, with little to no turmoil -- the hallmark of a very stable pack.

He’s -- kind of proud. On behalf of Talia, anyway, because his sister is not here to see it. She would be happy that her son’s pack is thriving.

Allison pokes her head into the kitchen. “Movie time!”

Peter ends up sitting next to Stiles again. This time, Lydia is on his other side, though she’s not nearly as close as Stiles, who is pressed firmly against Peter’s side, getting all up in Peter’s space to get at the popcorn.

When Stiles starts talking through Peter’s favorite part of the movie, Peter puts a threatening hand on the back of Stiles’ neck, firm and steady. “Shh,” he says quietly, and Stiles stops immediately. Despite the threat, despite the dangerous fingers pressed against unguarded skin, Stiles doesn’t ever smell scared. Peter could rip him to shreds in a moment, but Stiles just leans back against the press of his hand and is quiet for the rest of the movie.

\--

They all go out to pick pumpkins as Halloween approaches. Somehow, Peter was wrangled into coming along on the outing. He picks up the most average, picture-perfect pumpkin he can find within the first five minutes, and carts it around until everyone else is done.

Scott ropes some poor stranger into taking their picture.

In it, all of them are smiling, laughing. Looking at each other and not at the camera. It’s a perfect snapshot of an afternoon Peter hadn’t thought he’d enjoy, but had. Boyd and Erica are kissing, Isaac is snarking at Jackson while Lydia watches on. Scott and Allison are cooing at the pup. Derek and Cora are standing with their arms crossed, looking more like siblings than ever. Stiles is beaming, throwing his pumpkin in the air. And Peter? Peter is looking at Stiles and grinning, a mile wide.

A copy of it ends up stuck to Peter’s fridge.

\--

Time is a funny thing.

It passed like molasses while Peter was in the coma. While he was the alpha, it was gone in the blink of an eye -- he barely remembers any of it at all, just flashes of red and anger and pain. It lingered, in death, but even then it swirled around him like tendrils of smoke, just out of his grasp.

It always trucks steadily onward like the churning of gears, away from him, unwilling to pause when he’d most like it to. He can almost hear it, the gentle thrum of the universe, the ticking of all their biological clocks.

Peter cheated death once so that he could live again -- but what’s the point of living if you’re spending most of your time running from something? It’s a waste, Peter thinks. And he didn’t go to all that effort to throw his second chance away.

\--

Peter slides into the chair opposite Stiles at the coffee shop.

He pushes a too-frothy, too-sugary drink in Stiles direction. It takes Stiles a good few seconds to finish whatever he was reading, look up, and suddenly realize he’s not alone. “Oh! Hey, big bad. Didn’t see you there.”

“I’m aware.” Peter is momentarily concerned for Stiles’ safety. Anyone could have ambushed him at this coffee shop, anyone could have attacked him just now. Peter hadn’t even been trying to be quiet.

“Is that concern I spy on that chiseled brow?”

“Perhaps,” Peter says, and takes a sip of his own coffee. It’s sweet this time, like the one he got for Stiles. “I kidnapped you first. I don’t want anyone edging into my territory.”

“Are you calling _dibs_?” Stiles says with a laugh. He doesn’t sound at all concerned. He _also_ doesn’t sound all that serious. Peter wishes he sounded more of both, really.

He just hums. “I don’t want to keep you from your research.”

Stiles chews on his lip -- his teeth are so white, his gums, so red -- then takes a sip of the coffee Peter brought him. “You know, I think this is the first time _you’ve_ approached _me_.”

“Possibly.” It is, Peter thinks. Stiles has always been the one to seek him out, because that seems to be who Stiles is. The kid has never met a wasp’s nest he couldn’t resist agitating.

“I’m honored. Are you like, courting me now? Wooing me in some Victorian fashion, with frappuccinos and the maiming of various supernatural creatures?”

“Is it working?” Peter asks. He keeps his tone light, but he’s genuinely curious.

“I’m all yours, big bad.” Stiles says with a smile.

\--

 _I’m all yours_ , Stiles had said -- but that’s not truly the case, Peter knows. Stiles’ heartbeat had been all wrong. The words weren’t a lie, but they weren’t quite a truth, either. There had been a fluttering, something caged and tight, that accompanied them. Something that Peter couldn’t decipher at all.

He dwells on it probably a little too much, for a little too long.

Every time Peter advances, Stiles stands his ground for a while, for just long enough that Peter thinks he might stay there -- and then Stiles takes a metaphorical solid step back.

It’s a strange dance. One where Peter can only barely hear the music, doesn’t know the steps, and hardly knows where he’s aiming. He’d give up his tentative pursuits for Stiles’ time and attention, but Stiles keeps dancing along with him, matching Peter step-for-step, except when he always breaks away near the end.

\--

“I think I’m getting _old_ ,” Peter says to Cora on a cold and lazy Sunday.

“This is not the first time I’ve had this conversation this week, you know,” she says. She’s working on some paper at Peter’s kitchen table, typing away. Peter’s loft is good to do work in, she says. Peter knows it’s just because he’ll cook enough for both of them. “But it is actually relevant this time, as you are ancient.”

“Yes, thank you for that insight. Who else is having a crisis about aging?”

“Stiles, if you’d believe it.”

Peter raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure I do.”

“Right?” Cora laughs. “Derek, sure. He’s getting up there in years. But Stiles?” She types away at her laptop for a bit, then stretches. “I think it’s dumb. I think you’re both dumb. _So dumb_.”

“Well that much is obvious. Remind me why I allow you in my home, again?”

“Familial guilt. The inability to ignore pack. The ever-looming axe of karma.”

Peter considers for a moment, and then decides: “True.”

“Just deal with your problems and stop coming to me about them.”

“I’m trying,” Peter says. “I’m sure I’ll unlock the secrets of immortality if I just watch one more episode of Forensic Files. It has to be in here _somewhere_.”

“If at first you don’t succeed,” Cora says, already typing again.

\--

Peter tries, tries again.

“Cora said you were moping,” he says, sliding in opposite Stiles at the coffee shop again. An ambush with caffeinated treats. He slides a frappe over to Stiles. It has caramel drizzled over the top. It smells like gingerbread.

“Did she?”

“She didn’t particularly feel like elaborating, though” Peter says, studying his nails.

“I’m not moping,” Stiles says, sounding rather mopey. He’s quiet for a minute, then he keeps talking. “Tell me about your late-twenties?”

And so Peter does.

\--

Days later, Peter wakes up to find Stiles sitting on the edge of his bed.

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“Not _too_ long.” So, probably a while.

“I’m troubled that you got all the way in here without me realizing,” Peter says. He’s also heavily impressed. And a little unsurprised. His wolf knows that Stiles is no threat, so apparently he’d been allowed to sleep through Stiles’ little home invasion.

“Were you watching me sleep?” Peter asks. “Now who looks like a serial killer?”

“I learned from the best,” Stiles says, flopping down at the edge of the bed, stretching out length-wise, all long limbs in Peter’s personal space. Peter knows from experience that the sheets will smell like him for days.

Peter doesn’t ask why Stiles is here, why he let himself into Peter’s loft at an ungodly time, just to laze around at the end of Peter’s bed. He just lets the silence linger -- it’s what the moment calls for. He does sit up, though, so he can watch the rise and fall of Stiles’ chest from a better angle.

“I had plans, you know. When I was eighteen, I decided I was going to get out of here and like, start a life and everything. Go to college, graduate, get a job. Just be a normal person. I was going to be a family man at twenty-five, like Scott. It was boring, but it was like, my goal. Especially after the chaos that was high school -- all I dreamed about was an average, boring life.” Stiles stares at the ceiling while he talks.

“Do you want kids?” Peter asks.

“Now that I think about it, probably not. I did, in the abstract, I think. But then with Scott having them, I actually see what it’s like, and I think I’d rather just be a cool uncle. I think it was more about the image than anything. The sort of...happy, picture-perfect life.”

“You never factored a werewolf pack into your picture-perfect life?” Peter asks, mostly kidding. He hadn’t either, after the fire. Before the fire, that _was_ his life. He never thought he’d get it back again.

Stiles laughs. “You know, even with my best friend being one, I didn’t.” He sighs. “I think I’m just getting old. And I’m not really...exactly where I thought I’d end up, you know?”

Peter leans forward and furrows his brows, squinting into the dim light. He brushes his fingertips lightly over Stiles’ temple. “Are those grey hairs?” Peter himself has more than he’d like. He hasn’t spotted any on Stiles, yet.

Stiles swats at him. “Shut up, Cujo. I’m being serious.”

It’s -- interesting to think that Stiles has come to him with this concern. Shouldn’t he go to Scott, to Lydia, or even Derek, before Peter? Clearly he’s already gone to Cora, but perhaps not to this extent. It feels strange, having Stiles so open and vulnerable at his fingertips, like he’s opening his ribs and holding out his raw worries for Peter to observe.

“It’s not so bad, is it? Being someplace you never pictured yourself?” Peter asks.

“That’s heartwarming, thanks. Look at us, a pair of losers who never thought we’d end up here. I thought I’d have a boring life, and instead I’m playing supernatural pickup and part-timing as Willow. And I honest-to-god thought you’d be running a murder cult somewhere, but instead, _you’re_ playing domestic and painting accent walls.”

“I never thought I’d wake up to you in my bed, but here we are,” Peter says. Stiles laughs and Peter isn’t sure if he likes the tone of it, so he continues: “If it helps any, I’m not _just_ playing domestic -- I’m also getting my hands dirty every once in awhile, usually at your command.” Peter is far more likely to help if Stiles asks, instead of Derek.

“I say jump, you jump, huh?”

“Do with that what you will,” Peter says.

Stiles is quiet for a while. “I guess I thought I’d just be more settled, is all.”

“You seem pretty settled from where I’m sitting.” Both in Peter’s bed and in Stiles’ life.

Stiles groans. “Yeah, but -- I just -- everyone is settling down and all, and the only real long-term relationship I’ve ever had blew up in my face after college.”

“Ah,” Peter says. “And you moved back to Beacon Hills, after?”

“Yeah.”

“And you also threw away your dream of a boring life with two-point-five kids because one relationship didn’t work out?”

“What do you know?” Stiles says. The words sound harsh, but his tone isn’t.

“You know I was married.”

“Yeah. So why haven’t you shacked up with someone again?”

“I never particularly wanted to, after everything. And I’ve never really been one to date.” Peter had never found someone else he connected with, someone he actually _wanted_ to spend time around. Then, he’d come back here, and suddenly all of that has changed. Shifted under his feet like the slow progression of tectonic plates. Or perhaps, more like the slight of hand involved in a card trick. One second you’re looking, the other you’re not -- blink and you miss it. And you’re left with a new paradigm.

“Oh,” Stiles breathes out.

Peter hums. He wants to touch Stiles again, to card his fingers through that soft hair, but it feels oddly invasive. Stiles has bared so much -- Peter doesn’t want to take advantage while he’s all broken down and fragile.

Ugh, what’s _wrong_ with him? He’s getting soft.

Peter nudges Stiles with his foot. “Stop moping. It’s not a good look on you and -- let’s be real -- we only keep you around for the eye-candy.” Stiles is terrible. He’s making Peter into a less terrible person. Or maybe he’s just less terrible around Stiles.

“Maybe I should try scheming. You do that all the time. It makes you look all mysterious and aloof.”

“I _am_ mysterious and aloof,” Peter says, even though he doesn’t quite feel that way when it comes to Stiles. He feels transparent and loud, like he’s constantly screaming _‘pay attention to me,’_ in Stiles’ direction.

Some days, he feels like has Stiles’ whole attention. And others? Well, then there are the others.

\--

“I have a date,” Stiles tells him.

Peter ignores the way his gut twists and then sinks like a stone.

He thinks vividly of the time he ripped into that corpse to tug out the heart with Stiles watching over his shoulder. Stiles hadn’t shut up. Peter had been covered in red.

He feels like Stiles has his hands on Peter’s heart and is tugging, pulling, crushing; it’s that messy and raw.

But he bites the feeling back, because Peter Hale doesn’t _mope_.

“I wasn’t aware I was taking you out,” he says, instead. Like it’s the joke Stiles keeps pretending it is, every time Peter edges close to it.

“Hardy har har,” Stiles says.

When Peter doesn’t say anything else, Stiles continues. “We’re going laser-tagging. It’s like I’m fifteen again.”

“I’ll take you laser-tagging,” Peter says. It might actually be a fun pack activity. But that’s not what he means.

“Don’t diss laser-tag. Scott and I used to go all the time. Besides, it’s a good way to judge someone’s character. I want to make sure he’s not secretly a serial killer, or anything.”

“Ouch,” Peter says.

\--

“Why are you here?” Peter asks, when Stiles lets himself into Peter’s loft at one in the morning. It comes out rougher than he truly means, more biting. More vicious. Maybe that was a little snarl, but who’s counting? Peter’s been stalking around his loft all evening, after two runs in the woods and a bout of working out. He’s tired, he’s cagey, and he’s irritable.

Stiles stops in his tracks. For once, he doesn’t ignore his instincts. Or maybe, for once, he knows that Peter doesn’t actually want to be bothered this time. He puts his hands up, which is both rewarding and not, in turns. Peter hasn’t been treated like the _big bad_ that Stiles constantly calls him in a while. It reminds him of fonder times.

He raises his eyebrows and glances at the door. “And you’re waiting for an invitation to leave, because…?” Peter says, even though he wants Stiles to stay. He smells like sweat and like _someone else_ \-- Peter hates it. He wants to get his hands all over Stiles’ skin and wipe it all away. He could smell like Peter, instead. At the very least, he should smell like _pack_ , and he doesn’t.

“Yeesh,” Stiles says, keeping his tone light. He’s a smart kid, when given a chance. He’s weirdly diplomatic, with an intuitiveness about people that is disconcerting at times. “Fine, I’ll leave you to your beauty-sleep, dude. Certainly looks like you need it.”

“Get out,” Peter snarls. He takes one predatory step toward Stiles, who then bolts smoothly for the door.

\--

It’s like Peter can say anything, and Stiles absolutely refuses to take it at face-value.

After Peter gets over his momentary funk about it, it’s fun. He _makes_ it fun.

Stiles doesn’t approach him about that night. Peter’s half-grateful about it. Normally, Stiles will prod at a wound until the scab threatens to reopen -- perhaps he knows better than to do that with Peter. The whole evening is brushed rather unceremoniously under the rug.

_“Do I really think he’s second-date material?” Stiles asks Peter over a cup of coffee._

_“I’m second date material,” Peter answers._

_Stiles laughs, and bumps against Peter’s shoulder. “So you keep saying, big bad.”_

Stiles’ return to dating doesn’t go too well, but by golly, does he keep trying. Eventually, Peter just gets used to the idea, mostly because he has to. Stiles keeps going on meaningless dates because that seems to be what he wants to do with his time, and Peter keeps joking about how it could instead be him. He can either get used to it, or he can stew in his angst. And he’s no longer a hormonal teenager, so he aims for the former.

_“Marry me?” Peter asks, unpacking his groceries in the kitchen while Stiles works away at his table. He pulls out a ring pop he found in the candy-section as he had been checking out. It’s cherry-flavored, not that he bought a candy based solely on the color it would turn Stiles’ lips, but -- he’s only human._

_Stiles catches it when Peter throws it at him, grinning._

_“I thought you were supposed to get down on one knee?”_

_“Picky,” Peter says. He moves towards Stiles, snatches the candy back, and gets down on one knee. He’s so close to Stiles that he can feel his body heat. “How’s this?”_

_“...Good?” Stiles sounds a little strangled. It’s not a lie. “But honestly I expected a bit more of a dramatic flair from you.”_

_“You’re right,” Peter says. “Next time I’ll make sure to spell it out in the corpses of your vanquished foes.”_

Peter still ends up doing Derek’s dirty work when he can’t beg himself out of it. For a while, he could easily use the excuse that he was a liability, not being truly pack -- but he can’t even use that any more. He also can’t deny that there’s something freeing about getting his hands a little bloody, sometimes.

He takes out three rogue vampires. They die on his claws, while Stiles stakes them through the back, directly into their hearts.

“Brutal,” Stiles says, pulling the stake out of the last one. The corpse crumbles into ash almost instantaneously. The smell of it gets in Peter’s nose, too familiar. When it all comes down to it, everything burnt smells the same. It’s weird that the blood of it stays, though. On his claws, on his shirt, on his shoes. Everything else turned to ash, except the parts that touched him.

“They’re very good at dying,” Peter remarks, brushing some stray ash off his shirt. He just smears blood across the white-grey cotton, instead. Ah well, another one down. All his shirts are dropping like flies, these days.

“Do you have a job?” Stiles asks. “Besides general sort of handy-man, I mean.” He gestures around them, like he means all the killing and maiming Peter is responsible for. Like it’s as ordinary as fixing bathroom sinks or installing shelving.

“I live off a particularly substantial life-insurance policy,” Peter says, and begins heading in the direction Derek, Cora, and Isaac. “I’m also very into the stock market. Why?”

“I just realized I didn’t know.”

“There’s truly an astounding number of things you don’t know about me, Stiles.”

“Yeah,” Stiles breathes. “I’m beginning to realize that.”

\--

Stiles dates one man for five weeks, and then a woman for ten. Neither relationship ends in tears, but they do leave Stiles moping during the subsequent pack dinners. At least he never had to introduce any of them to the pack, Peter thinks.

“Is your next target for fifteen weeks, or are you aiming for twenty? I’m not sure I see the pattern, yet, but I’m willing to wait it out.”

“You’re a real laugh, you know that?”

“Cora offered me a bet. She said fifteen weeks, but I think twenty. You seem very dedicated to the cause.”

Stiles doesn’t laugh, though. He only bristles. “For a man who doesn’t date, you’ve sure got a lot to say about it.”

Peter hums. “True. I generally think dating is a waste of time.”

Stiles groans. “So, you think I’m wasting my time?”

Out here on the balcony of Derek’s loft, Peter can almost pretend their conversations are private. Sure, the wolves are probably trying to be courteous and _not_ listen in, but it’s difficult not to, he knows. It leaves Peter with the distinct feeling that he could be being judged at any moment. Sure, Stiles can’t hear his heartbeat -- but Scott can, Derek can.

“That’s a complicated question with a complicated answer.”

“You’re a complicated guy,” Stiles says. “Indulge me. Tell me why I’m wasting my time trying to find a romantic connection. I’m withering away in my late twenties and I’m being judged by a zombie wolf who wouldn’t know love if it bit him in the ass.”

Peter raises his eyebrow. “Do you think I’m not capable of love?”

Stiles is quiet for a moment. He bites his lip until its red. “No,” he sighs. “I’m sorry, that was -- a dick thing to say.”

“It _was_ a little harsh,” Peter agrees. If he’s honest, he’s a bit shocked by the venom in Stiles’ words, the bite.

“Sorry,” Stiles echoes.

The word hangs jagged between them.

“I’m just frustrated, is all,” Stiles says. “And I’m lonely. Don’t you get lonely?”

“Not completely. Not when there is pack.” Not when there is Stiles.

Stiles sighs and flops into one of the chairs on Derek’s balcony. Peter lets himself fall into the one next to Stiles’.

“It’s not the same.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Is that a bit of emotion I spy?” Stiles asks, squinting at Peter. “I thought those weren’t part of the reincarnation package.”

“Some might have slipped through the purging process,” Peter says.

“What, like vengeance? Anger? Creepiness -- no, wait, that’s more of a vibe. The desire to kill and maim small woodland creatures?”

“I’m only interested in killing and maiming small woodland creatures when I get to bring them to you as trophies.”

“Are you a cat now?”

Peter hums and silence falls. The night carries on around them, quiet and cool.

The moment feels raw and heavy, like there’s an empty space where Peter should say something, a void he should fill with his words. But his usual snark or his sarcasm don’t fit -- the shape of it is softer, so he’s left feeling unbalanced, not knowing what to say.

“I just want to be appreciated,” Stiles says. Quiet, barely audible.

Peter turns to him, grabs his wrist. He is suddenly reminded of the time he offered Stiles the bite, how he held up Stiles wrist to his teeth and breathed in, how he felt that pulse under his fingertips. “If you think you aren’t appreciated, there’s bigger fish to fry than you finding your white picket fence and two-point-five kids.”

Stiles doesn’t pull out of Peter’s grasp, just lets him hold on, like a lifeline. Maybe that’s what Peter is right now. “No,” he sighs. “I know, I know. Sorry, I’m just being dramatic. God, I feel like I’m in high school again.”

“You’re far more attractive than you were in high school,” Peter says, attempting to lighten the mood. “Also, marginally less of a mess.”

“Yeah, thank you for that, creeper-wolf. I ditched the terrible haircut and grew into my features. Good to know you noticed, though.”

“You asked how I don’t get lonely,” Peter says.

“I did.”

“I have pack,” Peter says. It feels like he needs to say this. It’s important. “And I have family.” He feels Stiles’ pulse under his fingertips, feels it hammering away. Quick, but unerringly steady. “And I also have you.” Stiles, who has infiltrated Peter’s life, his home, his thoughts. He is everywhere, like time. Pervasive and all consuming. Peter cannot escape him, either.

“Hey thanks,” Stiles says. He sounds close to sarcastic, but his heartbeat doesn’t lie -- it feels _relieved_. “I love you too, big bad.”

Peter should be thrown for a loop. Because that’s what he’d said, basically, wasn’t it? But he’s not thrown, not really. It’s just that he’s dug himself a little deeper into this hole without realizing it, is all.

“You’ve got me,” Stiles says. “And I’ve got you too, right?”

“I thought that much was obvious,” Peter says.

This time, Stiles hums, and silence falls again.

\--

When Peter dreams, he dreams of autumn woods, of grocery stores, of painting walls. Mundane things. The red creeps in on the sides, sometimes, and so does the darkness, slick black and void. But it is not all consuming; it is not everything.

He worries about time, but it shifts into something he feels is a bit more normal, a bit more commonplace. Everyone worries about time, everyone worries about getting older.

Peter invests himself in the pack. He stops them from ordering takeaway for pack dinners and starts cooking -- Tex-Mex, mostly, because he’s a sucker for tradition, maybe. He advocates for a camping trip in the beginning of the spring, where they all spread out under the stars and complain about the nipping frosty wind. He even -- and this one is the true shocker -- babysits.

Scott and Allison’s pup is small and fragile and she likes pulling on Peter’s ears. She likes it even more when he snarls with his wolf’s teeth -- she laughs and snarls back with tiny teeth of her own. Her name is Lia Abigail and Peter is a little bit awed by her everything.

\--

“Oh my god, they left you alone with her?” Stiles says, letting himself into Peter’s loft. Peter and Lia are on the ground with truly an assortment of toys spread out in all directions around them. Peter is building up towers for the cub to knock over.

“Someone has to be the bad influence,” Peter informs him.

Stiles watches for awhile.

“You know it’s Talia, right?” Stiles says, after Lia has teetered into a tower taller than her, laughing as the destruction rains down around her. “Hm?”

“Lia. It’s for Talia. Scott wasn’t sure if Derek -- or you -- would ever have kids. He didn’t wanna be like, too obvious about it, or say anything, because it’s Scott and he’s dumb, but…” Stiles trails off, and then shrugs to punctuate his thought.

“That’s awfully thoughtful of him. I assume you played some part in it?”

Stiles leans down and scoops up the cub, hoisting her onto his shoulders as she squeals.

“Maybe a little,” Stiles says.

“Are you still moping?” Peter asks, standing up and stretching.

Stiles watches him for a bit, then makes Lia fly like an airplane, complete with complementary jet-noises. “Not really.”

“Are you still dating?” Peter asks, trying not to feel too hopeful. It’s been weeks since Stiles came to him with any dating stories.

“Nah,” Stiles says. “I realized that really wasn’t what I wanted at all.”

\--

“Thanks,” Cora says, during a family walk through the old Hale property. It’s just Cora, Derek and him, traipsing around their old land, patrolling it and getting it familiar again.

“For?” Peter asks.

“For coming back,” Derek finishes for her. “For becoming part of the pack.”

“For being there,” Cora adds. “For being like, a regular person. As much of one as you can be, anyway. It’s much easier to be like, ‘ _oh this is my uncle Peter, he was traveling for a while_ ,’ than to try and explain that you’re a crazy psycho with whom we’re not on speaking terms.”

“You’re welcome,” Peter says, feeling the sentiment even though it’s expressed so off-handedly. “But I’ll have you know, I take my position in this pack very seriously. If you try to add any more ex-psychopaths, we are going to have a serious problem.”

“Shut up and give me a hug,” Cora says.

Peter hugs her, and then tosses her over his shoulder for two miles while she curses him to hell and back.

\--

At a warm pack meeting in the late spring, Erica and Boyd announce that they are expecting a cub of their very own.

“Oh man, what?! Us too!” Scott says, nearly flailing his way off the couch.

Allison puts a hand on his shoulder and sighs. “Scott, do you think you could let them have their moment?”

“Oh shit, sorry,” he says sheepishly.

Boyd and Erica just laugh. “It’ll be perfect,” Boyd says. “They’ll be like twins.”

Peter looks at Stiles, momentarily concerned that he’ll find something on the boy’s face he will want to brush off, like regret, or jealousy, or even resentment. Peter doesn’t find anything like that, though. Instead, Stiles looks overjoyed at the news.

Later, when they’re all making their way toward their cars and toward home, Stiles bumps against Peter’s side. “I thought I’d be a little jealous, but I wasn’t.”

Peter doesn’t say _‘I thought you would be, too.’_ Instead, he just loops an arm over Stiles’ shoulders and walks him the rest of the way to his car.

“I realized that having pack is...better than I ever could have imagined my life being. It’s fuller, happier. It’s good.” _It’s enough_ , Peter hears.

“It is good,” Peter agrees. “I never thought I’d have something like this again.”

Peter removes his arm from Stiles’ shoulder when they get to the car, before Stiles has a chance to worm out from underneath it. That’s not something Peter wants to experience, so he just doesn’t let it happen.

“Wow, that was more soul-beary than I’m used to from you,” Stiles says, leaning against his jeep, clearly unkeen to depart.

“I’ll have you know, I’m can be _soul-beary_ on occasion.” Peter rests his hand on the jeep, next to Stiles’ head, ostensibly trapping him in. The moment is very reminiscent of their early-days, their first few rickety encounters.

Clearly, he’s not the only one. “I’m getting some serious flashbacks, here,” Stiles says.

Peter can’t help himself; he just cannot be held accountable for his actions. The temptation is too much. He takes ahold of Stiles’ wrist and brings that fleshy, delicate skin only a couple inches from his mouth. He breathes in, smelling Stiles, that woodsy, citrus scent. Stiles’ pulse is hammering in his veins, near-frantic under Peter’s fingertips.

“Do you want the bite?” Peter asks, trying to echo himself from before, but it’s difficult. So much time has slipped through his fingers between now and then.

He knows Stiles doesn’t want the bite, that he likes being human and likes being the spark. He’d lose that, if he became a wolf. Peter doesn’t even want Stiles to say yes, not really. He’s just -- acting. Without desire, without consequence, without thought. A joke within a joke.

Stiles is quiet for a moment, presumably shocked into a stunned silence, before he laughs. This time around it’s not nervous -- just amused. Stiles isn’t scared of him in the slightest. It’s an exhilarating feeling, instead of disappointing, like he might have thought.

“You want me to quiver in my boots a little bit, for old time sake?” Stiles asks.

“Please,” Peter says.

Stiles breaks Peter’s hold only seconds later, presumably just to prove that he can, that he’s stronger and more capable now. Not that Peter ever had any doubt at all, but he’s happy to be proven right.

\--

“How are your nightmares?” Stiles asks, one day.

Peter can’t remember the last time he had one. He says as much.

“Time is a weird thing, right?” Stiles says. “It’s the great healer, the great distancer. Sure, it won’t fix things entirely -- but it makes them less raw, less painful to deal with. I mean, unless you have like wolfsbane poisoning or cancer or you’re dealing with a bomb. In which case, time is really and truly of the essence.”

“You’re a regular philosopher,” Peter tells him, sliding a sugary-sweet coffee over the table.

“I’m glad,” Stiles says, after a minute. “That they went away. Your nightmares, I mean.”

It’s not like Peter’s life is suddenly perfect, now that his sleep is mostly nightmare-free. The crushing weight of time is still curled like a python on his shoulders, unrelenting. The tether that is the tie of _pack_ is still vaguely foreign and disconcerting. The pull of his desire for Stiles is aching, more haunting now that it is fully-realized and unignored. But there is a familiarity in these things that Peter has gotten used to, a humanity in them. They are intrinsic parts of a life that he fought very hard for. Time, family, and love -- he cannot run from them. Nor does he particularly want to.

“Me too,” Peter says.

\--

Stiles’ business is booming enough that he rents a small shop in town. Ostensibly, it’s a New-Age magic store. Lydia, Cora, and Isaac help him decorate while Peter supervises from an antique chair in the corner. The effort comes out looking solidly good, if not a bit tacky. It’s perfect for Stiles, Peter thinks.

A month later, Stiles is selling rocks and tarot cards and books on the occult. He also has a corner full of dragon statues, of which Peter is particularly fond. They’re terrible, he thinks. Ugly and tacky, but Derek hates them, so Peter loves them. The business Stiles pulls in through the actual storefront keeps his research funded, allowing him to take private cases where the money is thin. After all, it’s not just rich people who end up having demon or other supernatural problems -- it’s typically broke students, as the pack is well aware.

“This is not really something I ever factored into my life,” Stiles says, sipping tea and running his fingers over the display of crystals, imbuing them with wispy tendrils of green magic. “But I think I’ll like it.”

With a claw, Peter taps a ward that Stiles’s put up on the East-facing wall. He listens to the chime of it ringing in his ears.

“I can’t say I never imagined it,” Peter says, idly.

“What, you pictured me as a boring shopkeeper?”

“I enjoyed imagining your possibilities. You’ve always had so many.” Of all the pack members, Peter has always found Stiles the brightest, the one with the most potential. Lydia, too, but her possibilities were always less broad, as ambitious and driven as she was at such a young age.

“Sometimes, you still sound so creepy,” Stiles says. “‘ _I enjoyed imagining your possibilities,’_ oh my god. I’m never sure if you’re trying for it, or if the creeper aesthetic is just written into your DNA.”

Peter studies his claws.

“I suspect that it’s hard-coded, at this point.”

“Come here and hold this, I want to see if it burns you,” Stiles asks, holding up a moonstone that Peter knows for a fact Stiles has been housing with wolfsbane for the last four months. “It won’t hurt too bad.”

“Ask nicely, and then maybe.”

“You’ll do anything for me, big bad. Don’t front.” Stiles says with a genuinely wolf-like grin. “Pretty please?” he says, and drops the rock into Peter’s outstretched palms.

The truth of Stiles’ words is more painful than the moonstone itself, but even that has dulled into such a familiar ache at this point that Peter barely notices either at all.

\--

Full moons come and go.

Peter gets blood on his claws and washes it off too many times to count.

He sleeps and he dreams and he _lives_.

\--

Stiles flops down dramatically on Peter’s couch while Peter is making blueberry pancakes.

“Why don’t _you_ take me on a date?” Stiles asks. His voice says _confident, nonchalant_ , but his heartbeat says _panic!!_ , like a staccato drum -- loud and tinny and distressed.

“I thought you were over dating months ago,” Peter says.

Stiles shrugs. “Answer the question, big bad.”

Peter flips a pancake and admires how perfectly it’s cooked. Golden brown. “I’ve offered.”

“No, but I mean, like, seriously.” If Stiles heartbeat doesn’t stop doing that, Peter is going to go insane. Again.

“I’ve offered seriously,” Peter says.

“No you haven’t.”

“I have.” Every time Peter offered he was serious.

Stiles is quiet. Peter can hear him swallow. He flips another pancake; perfect, again.

“You’re going to give yourself a heart attack,” Peter says. “I can hear your heart all the way from over here. What, did you think I was kidding, all those times I asked?”

“Well _yeah_ ,” Stiles says. “ _Obviously_.”

Peter hums. He supposes that makes sense; Stiles always treated it like a joke. Peter assumed that was because he was overwhelmingly clear and Stiles was overwhelmingly uninterested, but was kind enough to play it off as a joke. Hm. He can see the misstep, the miscalculation. It’s glaringly obvious, now that there’s some distance and time between himself and the interactions.

He’s used to not lying. Despite his love of manipulation, he does so enjoy telling the truth. There’s something freeing about it, something rewarding.

He’s also used to not being _able_ to lie to werewolves. He figured Stiles would assume Peter would lend him the same courtesy. Evidently not.

“I gotta go,” Stiles says after a few long moments. He rolls himself off Peter’s couch and shimmies past the kitchen on his way out of the loft. The door clicks shut behind him. His exit is unnervingly quiet.

Peter tries not to feel dizzy with uncertainty about what exactly just transpired. For the first time in a long time, he feels the darkness creep in on the edges of his awareness.

The minutes afterwards pass too slowly and his next batch of pancakes burns.

\--

“What’d you do this time?” Cora asks. She and Peter are walking the perimeter of the pack’s territory again.

“Very accusatory,” Peter says. “I like it.” He’s quiet for a moment before actually answering her question. “I was my usual charming self -- isn’t that always the answer?”

“Sure, you’re no saint, but you’re not nearly the lunatic you once were. You had to have done something.”

“I asked him out. Multiple times.” Peter shrugs. “He always assumed I was kidding. I corrected that assumption.”

“ _Obviously_ you weren’t kidding. Everybody with eyes knew that. -- He really didn’t know?”

Peter shakes his head. The underbrush crunches underneath his boots.

A little while later, Cora whistles, long and low. “So, have you actually talked to him about it?”

“No. He left before I had a chance.”

“Stiles hates being surprised. You’re lucky he didn’t pummel you with a baseball bat or anything.”

“It wasn’t really my intention to surprise him. He should have taken me at face value.”

“We’d all be dead multiple times over if we took you at face value, Peter.”

Peter makes a noncommittal noise. She’s probably right -- no, she’s _definitely_ right.

\--

Peter is saved from having to try and figure out just how he’s going to handle the next pack dinner by Stiles showing up the evening before it.

He _rings the doorbell._

It’s so out of character that Peter opens the door and just squints at Stiles, who is standing in the hallway holding a box of pizza, looking a little disheveled. “Why didn’t you let yourself in?” Peter leans forward and takes a whiff of the air. He gets: Stiles, woods, and mushroom & pepperoni. “Were you replaced by a rather convincing shapeshifter?”

“Hardy har,” Stiles says. “Are you going to let me in?”

“Mm. Just what a double of Stiles would say,” Peter says, but gestures for him to come inside anyway, feeling a bit off-balance. He wasn’t expecting Stiles. If anything, he was expecting either (or both) of them to skip tomorrow’s pack dinner to avoid any sort of awkward and unnecessary confrontation until they deemed themselves ready to deal with the situation at hand. A time which Peter also assumed would be a ways away.

Even though they’re both the sort of people who would rather ignore a problem until it goes away than actually deal with it, Stiles is still here. He is here, in Peter’s kitchen, brandishing a pizza like a weapon and an expression that says he’s ready to fight.

“Obviously, I’m here to talk,” Stiles says.

“You’re always here to talk. You talk wherever you go, Stiles. Can I take that?” Peter asks, gesturing at the pizza box because he isn’t sure what else to say. “Or is it currently acting as a security blanket? Will you fall to pieces the second I put it on the counter?”

Stiles shoves the box at him after giving Peter a look that could wilt the freshest of cut flowers, and then starts talking. “So, I want to preface this whole thing with ‘ _we’re both idiots’_ \-- is that an acceptable baseline?”

Peter nods. “Likely, yes.” Peter was an idiot for ever letting his emotions get out of hand.

“I mean, I’m an idiot who graduated at the top of my class in both high school and college, with honors, but I’m still -- an idiot. Sometimes. Not all the time. But definitely sometimes. This is totally one of those times.”

“Stiles.”

“Yeah, sorry. Look. About the whole,” Stiles gestures between himself and Peter, “you and me thing. To me, it was all kind of just a joke.”

Peter bristles. “I’m aware,” Peter says, trying not to feel like his heart is sinking, just a bit. It’s already sunk a while ago -- how much further is there for it to go?

“Okay buddy, you don’t get to put on that face. Let me finish. I always treated it like a joke because it was. Oh my god, stop, no, not like that. Just -- why wouldn’t it be? Why would Peter Hale, certified Adult who was once a crazy murder who is now a weirdly normal bachelor having a midlife crisis, _actually_ be serious about asking me out?”

“Because he wanted to,” Peter says.

“But, look. I’m me. That sort of thing doesn’t happen to me. When it does, it’s usually some like, supernatural plot or something. You’re -- you. We’ve got a novel-length history full of snark and teasing each other. Not to mention there’s the age difference. The chance that you were actually being serious and not just teasing me like we do -- well, it just sounded so absurd to me that I didn’t even consider it as a possibility. Besides, you said you weren’t interested in dating.”

“We’re both adults here, Stiles. You can just tell me you’re not interested. There’s no true way of predicting, but I don’t _think_ I’ll go into a murderous rampage after one rejection.”

Stiles groans like he’s dying. He’s frustrated, Peter can tell. But so is Peter. Stiles is pacing his kitchen, like he can’t stay still, like there’s too much energy built up inside him -- like a dam, waiting to burst. All Peter wants to do is catch him and steady him for a moment. But that seems impossible. Stiles is like lightning, a spark -- he is impossible to hold, to tame, to catch.

“You are _literally_ the worst,” Stiles says with another groan

“How can I forget? You do keep reminding me,” Peter says.

And then, suddenly, Stiles is right there. He moves so fast that Peter can barely blink before Stiles is in front of him, in Peter’s space, in his vision, in his sights. He is everything, he is all that Peter knows in that moment.

“The. Worst,” Stiles says -- and then he’s kissing Peter. He grabs fistfuls of Peter’s tee shirt and hauls him forward, pressing their lips together in a sudden and ardent kiss. Peter can do nothing other than bend to Stiles’ whims -- not that he wants to do anything different. Stiles backs him against a cabinet, pressing that long and lean body flush against Peter until there’s nothing but heat between them. There’s something freeing about giving in to Stiles, about letting himself be kissed and being the one kissing back. It’s not how Peter’s romantic encounters normally go down.

Kissing Stiles is better than Peter ever imagined it being -- for those few and far-between moments where he did let himself imagine. He tastes like nothing other than _Stiles_ and hot desire, and Peter has no problem eating it right up.

Even though Peter feels a bit ambushed by the kiss, a bit taken off-guard and knocked sideways, he makes up for it after getting his feet back underneath him. He cups a hand around the back of Stiles neck and lets his fingers curl into the soft hair there. He licks into Stiles mouth, kissing back as good as he gets -- which is _damn good_. Looks like Stiles has been hiding some tricks up his sleeve.

Eventually, before the encounter gets too hot and heavy, Stiles pulls back. Peter ducks to bury his face in Stiles’ neck to nose at his throat. Just breathing him in, mouthing along the warm skin there, like he’s always wanted to do.

For once, Peter isn’t sure what words to say to fill the silence between them. So, the quiet lingers for a little while, just both of them breathing heavy in Peter’s kitchen. The cabinet at Peter’s back does a good job of keeping him upright. Otherwise, he thinks he might not be so steady. Stiles has gotten him a bit dizzy.

“Well, that was certainly unexpected,” Peter says.

Stiles laughs, shaking against Peter. He moves to press his lips into Peter’s hair. “Was it, really?”

Peter shrugs and nips at Stiles’ jugular, mostly just because he can. Stiles laughs again -- he knows Peter isn’t a threat, not really. Not to Stiles, anyway. “Well, now that I think about it,” Peter says. “I bet you showed up here with that in mind.”

“Kinda did, yeah.”

Peter leans up and kisses Stiles again, just because he can.

“I’m sorry, big bad.” Stiles says, when Peter pulls back. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you that I was interested. I have been for a while. Probably longer than I’ve ever truly realized -- I just -- didn’t think it was a possibility. So I never let the thought get out of hand. I used to do the whole fantasize-about-your-unattainable-crushes thing until I realized it wasn’t a really healthy idea for me. It’s not like this is a new thing; I’ve always had crushes on totally unattainable people. It’s a personal problem. I didn’t think you were actually -- that you might -- I don’t know, _actually_ be interested in me.”

“Anyone who isn’t interested in you is a fool.”

“I think you’re probably biased.”

“Maybe.” Besides, if anyone else was as interested in Stiles as Peter is, they might need to fear for their life. Peter doesn't share well. 

“Anyway, the important thing here is that I had admired, but had never let my thoughts ever grow from _fledgling attraction_. So, I’m sorry for disappearing on you the other day, but I needed some time to think.”

“Thank you for thinking,” Peter says. “Thank you for coming back.”

Instead of of saying _‘you’re welcome,_ " Stiles kisses him. It’s an acceptable alternative, Peter thinks, especially when his hands move under Peter’s shirt and travel up his torso. The feeling of Stiles’ flesh against his is enough to knock out every thought from his head, all at once.

The kiss quickly becomes heated. There’s no other option when Stiles is right there, hands roving flesh while he licks into Peter’s mouth.

Before Peter knows it, he’s pulling Stiles’ shirt over his head and tossing it to the ground. His own quickly follows. With his bare torso pressed against Stiles, Peter can’t help but groan, to dip his lips to Stiles throat until Stiles is making similar noises. Peter drags fingernails over Stiles’ ribs, digs his fingertips in at the hips to pull Stiles close against him until they’re rocking against each other. It’s gratifying to feel Stiles as hard against Peter as Peter is against him. For a moment, he feels like a teenager, making out with blind and heated passion in dark corners -- but he’s not. Peter’s had a mid-life crisis now and he’s making out with Stiles in his kitchen like the counter digging into his back doesn’t hurt, like he wouldn’t rather just be horizontal.

“Should we --” Stiles starts.

“Move to the bed? Yes,” Peter says.

“...Go on a date first?” Stiles says with a laugh. But he’s dipping his fingers under the front of Peter’s wasitline and teasing the hair there until Peter whines and arches up against him. God, what he wouldn’t do for more of Stiles’ touch. He wants Stiles’ hands everywhere. He wants to put his own hands everywhere on Stiles, too.

Peter groans. “Dates are overrated.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, dipping forward to catch Peter’s lips in a messy kiss. He bites Peter’s bottom lip. He’s got a hell of a bite, that kid. “Screw that. I can think of some more pressing matters at hand.”

“Can you?” Peter asks.

Before Stiles can even laugh and say “ _yeah_ ” and elaborate, Peter is scooping him up bridal-style and carrying Stiles into his room. He throws Stiles onto the bed and waits, for a moment, just admiring his prize -- Stiles, spread out on Peter’s bed. He cannot stop his instincts from telling him that Stiles is prey that he has caught and brought back to his den -- but he doesn’t necessarily want to, either. This is a victory, even one that Stiles gave to him.

The picture of Stiles lying there, spread and wanton on Peter’s sheets, a tapestry of pale skin, moles, and the flush of passion -- it’s goddamn beautiful.

Peter can only resist for so long. After a moment, he is on Stiles, pressing him down against the white sheets, kissing him until he groans, biting him until pale skin turns red. Stiles isn’t rendered useless, though. His smart hands are at Peter’s belt and his zip, undoing them to impatiently tug at Peter’s trousers until Peter gives in and shucks them off, along with his boxer briefs. He makes short work of the rest of Stiles’ clothes, too.

“My god, your body,” Stiles says. Peter lets Stiles flip them, lets Stiles straddle him and run those crafty hands over Peter’s body. His fingers are long and lean, and he worships Peter with them, getting him panting and twisting and whining underneath Stiles. “You’re hotter than I imagined. You don’t really pull a Derek and walk around without your shirt too often.”

“Can we please not talk about my nephew in bed?”

“Roger that,” Stiles says, and leans down to take one of Peter’s nipples into his mouth, to play with between his teeth. If Peter thought Stiles’ hands were talented, his mouth is even more so. It shouldn’t come as a surprise -- Stiles is good at just about everything he puts his mind to -- and he’s a hell of a talker. Of course he’s good with that tongue, with those teeth. He knocks every thought out of Peter’s head in mere minutes, rendering Peter a useless mess of groans. Peter’s hands grip onto Stiles’ back, his neck, his hair -- anywhere he can get a hand-hold.

Stiles works his way down Peter’s body, after presumably getting bored of destroying Peter with attention to his nipples. This isn’t necessarily the way Peter thought this might play out -- he imagined being the one worshiping Stiles’ body, being the one to take Stiles apart -- not the other way around.

Not that he’s complaining.

He’s especially not complaining when Stiles takes Peter’s length into his mouth, no ceremony, no teasing. Just wet hot heat surrounding Peter’s cock. It’s perfect.

“Fuck,” Peter says, fisting his fingers into Stiles’ hair, holding on for dear life.

Stiles chuckles around him. There’s something fun and light-spirited about being in bed with Stiles, his playful nature carrying over into all aspects of his life. The kid knows he took Peter by surprise, knows he knocked Peter off his feet -- and he’s damn proud of himself, that much Peter can tell. He’s enjoying it, enjoying being the one with the upper hand and it’s hot as hell.

Peter watches Stiles work as much as he can, enraptured. Stiles swallows around him, working Peter’s cock over expertly, until Peter is panting and groaning. Stiles tongues along the underside of his length to tease him, carefully runs his teeth over the head.

Eventually, Peter has to hiss and pull at Stiles hair to tug him off, to pull him up so Peter can kiss those wet and warm lips. “You’re going to kill me,” Peter says, in between kisses.

Stiles slides back over his lap, straddling Peter. Peter lines up both their lengths and fists a hand around them both, working Stiles’ alongside his own saliva-covered cock. Stiles makes the prettiest noise Peter has ever heard. They both watch for a while, panting and groaning, as Peter works them over. Eventually, Peter catches Stiles in another kiss, wet and messy.

Just as Peter’s thinking he could come from this alone, Stiles pulls back. His pupils are dilated, his hair is a wreck; he is the most gorgeous disaster Peter has ever witnessed.

“I want you inside me,” Stiles says.

It takes Peter a second to catch his breath, to reconcile those words with reality. “So you’re _actually_ trying to kill me,” he says. But he has no qualms -- this seems like a good way to expire.

Peter moves fast, flipping Stiles over, shoving him face down against the sheets. He grabs Stiles’ thighs to pull him close, getting him on all fours in front of Peter. A banquet spread out for a king. “Any qualms?” Peter asks, sinking his teeth into the fleshy part of Stiles’ ass. He breathes, hot and heavy over his hole, so there’s no confusion as to what Peter is asking about.

“Oh my god, please. What are you waiting for?” Stiles says, arching his back even more -- an open invitation.

That’s all Peter needs. He tongues over Stiles, until Stiles’ hole is slick and wet. Then, Peter pushes his tongue inside, tasting him, savoring him. Stiles is hot and tight around him, but Peter works him with both his tongue -- and then a finger -- until Stiles is loose and relaxed. Peter teases all sorts of noises out of him, saving each and every one to replay later, because he knows this will all feel like a dream, later.

Peter watches as Stiles’ hands clutch at the sheets, watches as his back dips low and his hips shudder as he seeks more pleasure, more attention. He wonders, for a moment, if he could make Stiles come from this alone, if he could wring an orgasm out of him with just his tongue and his fingers.

He works two in, then three, until Stiles is groaning underneath him, his pleading a mantra of his desperation.

“I’m ready, Jesus Christ, I’m ready. _Please_ , for the love of God, Peter, fuck me. Put your cock inside me before I die of old age,” Stiles begs. And who is Peter to say no to _that_?

So, Peter pulls back and wipes his mouth on his arm. He pats Stiles’ thigh and sits back against the headboard of the bed. His own cock is painfully hard and leaking.

Stiles turns on his knees, wobbly and a little off-balance, looking hungry and desperate. It’s a good look, Peter thinks. He’ll have to make it happen again, soon. “I want you to ride me,” Peter says. He likes the feeling of Stiles over him, of Stiles pinning him down and taking exactly what he wants. It helps that it’s what Peter wants, too.

“Fuck yes,” Stiles says, and straddles Peter’s thighs once more.

Stiles is greedy like this, impatient and famished. He is panting like a wild animal, face red and breathing hard. Peter doesn’t even have to encourage him once before Stiles is lining himself up with Peter’s cock and sliding himself down on Peter’s length. He is hot and tight around Peter, and for a moment, Peter is completely lost to the sensation of him. The heat, the pressure, the feeling of Stiles’s hands steadying himself on Peter’s shoulders. He is Peter’s everything in this moment in time, the absolute center of his universe. Or, perhaps, Stiles is always that -- it’s just taken this moment for Peter to completely realize.

Stiles kisses him, breaking Peter out of his contemplation. It’s all Peter needs to snap to and kiss back, to drag his hands over Stiles’ body, worshiping him like the deity he is. He drags his hands over Stiles’ thighs, his back, his chest, while Stiles rides him. Peter drags his fingernails down pale skin until there are red marks in his wake, until Stiles is panting and arching into his touch. He is greedy for Peter’s attentions, needy and ravenous. A seemingly endless well of desire. That, Peter can work with. He kisses Stiles back until their lips are both red and swollen, until they are both panting with the effort of Stiles pistoning himself on Peter’s cock.

Peter’s hips shudder when Stiles comes down hard. Buried deep inside him like this, Peter can barely think, barely string two thoughts together. Not that he needs to, anyway.

He shoves his face against Stiles neck, nosing at the heat of him there, the smell, the sound of Stiles’ blood pumping ruthless through his veins. Peter bites down, clamps his teeth on Stiles’ neck -- and maybe they’re a little sharper than they were before, but he is careful not to break the skin, despite how much he loves imagining leaving a little red on that pale expanse of skin.

“Fuck, Peter,” Stiles groans, his own rhythm faltering as Peter gets a hand around Stiles’ cock, jerking him in time with Stiles’ movements.

“Come on,” Peter says, mouthing at Stiles’ neck, biting at his jawline. “Come on, Stiles.”

It doesn’t take long before Stiles is spilling into Peter’s hand, body shaking with the strength of his orgasm. His muscles clench and tighten around Peter, and that’s all the encouragement Peter needs. He thrusts once, twice more, and then his own orgasm hits him like a punch to the gut. Pleasure washes over him as fills Stiles, hips shuddering as he clutches at Stiles hips. Peter pants, blinking away darkness from the corners of his vision, a true testament to the force with which he came. He hasn’t felt anything like that for a long time.

Stiles collapses against him, burying his face against Peter’s neck. He folds so perfectly into Peter’s space that Peter almost can’t stand it, just how ideal it is, how fulfilled he feels with Stiles against him like this. It’s not that he necessarily felt incomplete without Stiles -- but he feels _more_ now. Like Stiles has added another dimension to his life, another layer to his new existence.

“Fuck,” Peter says, nosing at the sweaty hair at Stiles’ temple. He’s still catching his breath, but even panting he can enjoy the smell of them: sweat, come, saliva. It’s decadently messy and far too perfect. When Stiles pulls himself off and tucks himself in against Peter’s side it feels right, feels like something he’s been missing for far too long.

“Oh my god, thank you,” Stiles says.

Peter chuckles. “Shouldn’t I be thanking you?” He runs a hand down Stiles’ flank, enjoying the way Stiles shivers at his touch, over-sensitive. It’s marvelous to know he can just _touch_ Stiles now, that he can get his hands on him whenever he so pleases. It’s almost too much to imagine.

“You should be. I’m awesome,” Stiles says, beaming up at Peter.

“Then: thank you.” Peter says. “Also, you’re welcome.”

“You know how you can really thank me?” Stiles says, too cheeky for his own good.

“How can I really thank you?”

“By going to get that pizza in the kitchen and bringing it back here.”

Peter laughs and presses his lips to Stiles’ forehead. “Eating in bed? You’re a heathen.” But Peter still finds himself getting up anyway, because this is Stiles, and who is Peter to deny a little hedonism?

\--

In the morning, when they’re both exhausted and Peter is truly feeling his age, Stiles corners him in the kitchen. “Even though you don’t date, we could, like, go on one,” Stiles suggests, after a moment.

Last night, Peter dreamt of long mornings spent with Stiles, of his endless ocean of red affection for the boy. He woke feeling content and happy, for the first time in a long time.

“Must we?” Peter asks, pressing his nose to Stiles’ throat once more, as he is so keen to do now that he has full access to such a prone and beautiful spot.

Stiles’ heartbeat skips a little -- nerves, Peter thinks. It’s understandable; he doesn’t want Stiles to think this was a one night deal or something similar. Doesn’t want Stiles to think he’s not interested in all the other facets of a relationship, not just the sex.

Peter runs a hand down his Stiles’ spine; he is so much more muscular and fit than Peter would have guessed. “Relax. I just don’t think it’s necessary. Dating, generally, is for figuring out if you’re compatible. I _know_ we’re compatible.”

“Does that mean you aren’t going to take me out to a fancy dinner?”

Peter laughs. “I’ll take you out to as many fancy dinners as you want. I just don’t need to do that to see if this is a something I’m interested in pursuing. Besides, I would have thought you’d prefer that diner on 7th. The one with the best curly-fries.”

“Blasphemy,” Stiles says, biting Peter’s ear. “The one at the truck-stop off exit 15 has the best curly-fries. And I will literally fight you about it.”

“I’d like to see you try.”

**Author's Note:**

> _A man with a bandage is in the middle of something._   
>  _Everyone understands this. Everyone wants a battlefield._   
>  _Red. And a little more red._   
>  _Accidents never happen when the room is empty._   
>  _Everyone understands this. Everyone needs a place._   
>  _People like to think war means something._   
>  _What can you learn from your opponent? More than you think._   
>  _Who will master this love? Love might be the wrong word._   
>  _Let’s admit, without apology, what we do to each other._   
>  _We know who our enemies are. We know._
> 
> richard siken, **detail of the fire**
> 
>   
>  1.) thank you to [tsentian](http://tsentian.tumblr.com) for all the cheerleading on this, for looking it over and helping me make this happen.  
> 2.) i haven't actually watched more of teen wolf than seasons 1 and 2 and bits of season 3. so, i'm really cherry-picking my favorite pieces of canon for this.  
> 3.) comments and kudos are always appreciated.
> 
> you can find me on [tumblr](http://brawlite.tumblr.com), if you are so inclined.


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